Emotional Rigidity Vs. Emotional Agility and how it affects your daily life and work. Tips for developing flexible emotions.

What would your life look like if you could be flexible with your emotions? What's yours like now?

In the face of daily stress, it's easy to get hooked by negative emotions and behaviors. It takes effort to learn how to respond optimally rather than react reflexively. Becoming aware of our automatic responses is a great first step toward flexibility. It's also helpful to see how being emotionally agile is a necessary life skill.

The first step toward emotional agility is recognizing the emotions you experience throughout each day. You can do this by using an emotion log. For one week, carry around a small notebook or journal and write the title "My Feelings" at the top of a page.

Every time you experience an emotion, write it down and label it as positive or negative. Note the intensity of your feelings: light, moderate, severe. At the end of each day, record how intense and clear your emotions were throughout the day and whether any specific events trigger them.

This is a great activity for establishing emotional awareness . It will help you to recognize how emotions impact your thoughts and behaviors , which will ultimately shape the direction of your life.

Here's what Emma had to say after she completed an emotion log: "I've realized that I feel negative emotions most intensely when I'm unproductive at work, so I often find myself trying to avoid my obligations. I also notice that when I feel negative emotions, I lack clarity in my thinking. When this happens, I find it difficult to make decisions or take action because instead of making things happen in my life, I let them happen to me."

Emotions are like waves; they come and go. Simply becoming aware of your emotions will allow you to take them in stride, much like watching waves roll in and out.

Once you've developed awareness, the next step is to practice being proactive rather than reactive. Proactivity means being intentional with our behaviors and personal choices. Practicing emotional agility can mean choosing a different course of action from what your emotions would otherwise lead you toward.

This takes courage—to see how we react when we're emotionally hooked and to act differently, despite our feelings. We have to be willing to let go of the familiar, even if that means being uncertain about what lies ahead.

To be emotionally agile doesn't mean that you won't experience negative emotions. The goal instead is to learn how to respond better when you do feel them—to not get hooked by your feelings and behave in ways that are out of alignment with your thoughts and values. People who are emotionally agile don't let their emotions control them; they understand that there is a gap between their feelings and how they behave. ??

A great way to practice being proactive rather than reactive is by using the ABC method of emotional agility.

The acronym "ABC" stands for Awareness , Behavior , and Consequences . It provides a framework for seeing how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are connected. Here's how it works:

A – Awareness : What am I thinking? What am I doing? What am I feeling?

B – Behavior : Am I behaving in ways that align with my goals and values? If not, what needs to change?

C – Consequences : What are the short- and long-term consequences of my behavior? Do they add up to more life or less life for me in the long run? If so, what needs to change?

Let's go back to Emma. Using the ABC method, we could explore her emotions around work:

A – Awareness: "I feel overwhelmed and anxious because I'm not getting enough done at work."

B – Behavior: "I've been procrastinating and spending too much time on social media. As a result, I feel frustrated with my progress at work and neglectful toward my family."

C – Consequences: "My procrastination is impacting my productivity, which makes me feel frustrated. It's also taking away quality time with my family, making them feel neglected."

Emma could then start by tackling her behavior. She could set an intention to stop checking social media when she should be getting work done. Instead of procrastinating in the moment, she could take a proactive approach by creating a set of guidelines to keep her on task while she's at work. ?

By doing so, she would be able to take advantage of the positive feelings that being productive brings about—namely, more confidence and less anxiety. She would also avoid feeling guilty or stressed out when it comes to getting home for dinner.

Emma could also review the consequences of her behaviors. How does it feel to be so tied up with work that she doesn't have time for dinner with her family? What would happen if she developed a habit of being productive at work and had more energy to give to them when she's at home? She might even find that she enjoys evenings with her family more and that everyone is happier as a result.

It can be tricky to remember to use the ABC method in everyday moments of stress, but this practice will become easier over time. The important thing is to practice being proactive rather than reactive so that your emotions don't lead you down a path you don't want to take.

When we are emotionally rigid, we get hooked by feelings and behaviors that don't serve us well. When we're emotionally agile we can be flexible with our emotions in order to respond optimally in everyday situations.