What to learn in emotion management courses

The core of most formal emotion management courses is never to teach you to suppress your emotions and become a dull person who can't express emotions or anger. Instead, it helps you understand the operating logic of emotions, develop the ability to coexist with various emotions, and even transform emotions into action resources.

When I was doing in-house training for an Internet company two years ago, I met a little girl who was doing user operations. The original intention of coming to the class was that she felt that her "emotions were too useless" - she had to hide in the fire escape and cry for half an hour when the boss killed her project, and the users could post long comments and jump around the workstation with joy. She always felt that she had to practice "not taking everything personally" to be qualified in the workplace.

This is actually the two extreme differences in emotion management today. One group believes that emotions are the enemy of rationality and must be completely suppressed before management can be considered adequate. The other group believes that any suppression is wrong. They should cry whenever they want and make trouble as long as they don’t treat themselves badly. There are many crooked lessons on the market. We should go to these two extremes, either make emotion management a workplace PUA tool, teach employees "not to bring emotions to work", and completely ignore the rationality of emotions themselves, or simply turn it into an emotional catharsis class, without solving any problems. After shouting, it is better to go back to internal friction or internal friction.

The first step of a reliable course is usually to get rid of your prejudices about emotions. Have you classified "anger", "anxiety" and "grievance" as "bad emotions" since you were a child? In fact, this is the same as classifying rain as "bad weather" - rain during a drought is a good thing that you can't even ask for. Negative emotions are essentially signals sent by your body. Just like the little operations girl who cried because of a plan before. Behind her anger and grievance, she actually felt subconsciously that "her labor was not respected." This signal was originally to remind her to align her needs with the leader in advance next time, or to synchronize and clarify her considerations for making plans. As a result, she first scolded herself eight hundred times, "Why are you so impatient?" She ignored the internal friction and put aside the real problem to be solved.

In addition to cognitive adjustment, we will also teach you some practical "emergency tips", that is, how to put on the brakes during the 30 seconds when your emotions are high. It does not allow you to hold back the fire, which will only hurt you if you hold back the knots. It helps you find your own "emotional pause button". I've seen people put a small frosted walnut in their pocket, and hold it for two minutes when they get emotional. The rough feeling comes over, and the "I have to let out the fire today" in the mind first subsides by half. ； There is also a sales student who puts a thick rubber band on his wrist. If he can't help it, he will give it a little flick. The pain will instantly pull you out of the emotional whirlpool for a few seconds. It is better than having to choke the customer with your words and regret later after losing the order.

Of course, many people now complain that "emotion management courses are useless chicken soup." Indeed, if you expect to never be angry or sad after taking two classes, you will most likely be disappointed. Emotion management is never about eliminating emotions. You worked overtime until three in the morning and your overtime pay was deducted. It is natural to be angry. The course will not make you not angry. It will only teach you how to use this anger to argue with HR, instead of losing your job badge and resigning without even getting paid.

Speaking of which, I have met so many students who have completed a complete course. Few of them have become emotionless work machines. On the contrary, most of them live more relaxedly than before. They knew how to express their anger without hurting others and without losing themselves. I used to be stuck in emo for two or three days and could not get out. Now I can figure out the source of emotions in half a day, solve problems when it is time to solve them, and eat hot pot when it is time. This is the most practical meaning of learning this course.