Poor emotional management

Poor emotional management is never a "character flaw or moral problem". The essence is a neutral state in which an individual's emotional perception ability, available regulatory resources, and the needs of the current scene do not match the needs of the current scene - it is neither a shortcoming that must be corrected, nor an irreversible nature.

The girl who came to me for a case last week was the operations director of an Internet company. She had been busy with the 618 promotion for three days. When checking the event rules in the early morning, she found that her subordinate had missed filling in the effective time of a discount coupon. She threw the folder on the table on the spot, and everyone in the office turned to look at her. Afterwards, she held me in tears for almost half an hour and repeatedly said, "Why do I manage my emotions so poorly? Now everyone thinks I am a violent leader." Her friends around her also advised her, "You have to change your temper, otherwise you will suffer consequences sooner or later." You see, when most people encounter this kind of thing, their first reaction is to equate "losing their temper" with "poor emotional management", and then equate "poor emotional management" with "being incompetent". In fact, they haven't gotten to the root of it at all.

What’s interesting is that the attributions and solutions given by different schools of psychology for “poor emotional management” are not even the slightest bit different. For example, the most popular cognitive behavioral school believes that the problem lies in your interpretation of the incident - when the operations girl threw the document just now, the thought that came to her mind was "I can't even do this little thing well. It's all my responsibility for the problems in the big promotion. The boss must think that I am incompetent." If a subordinate's mistake is directly tied to "I am a failed manager", it is equivalent to adding ten times the pressure to yourself, and your emotions will naturally become unbearable. The solution they gave is also very practical, which is to stop talking for three seconds when you are emotional and ask yourself two questions: "Is what I am thinking now true? Are there any other possibilities? ”To tell the truth, she later went back to talk to her subordinates and found out that the young man had been in the hospital overnight with his girlfriend who had acute gastroenteritis the night before. He had missed the information when he rushed to work in the morning. She granted the young man two days of leave that same day, and also adjusted the work schedule during the promotion period. There has never been a similar conflict since then.

But if you ask researchers in positive psychology, they will definitely shake their heads and say that this matter has little to do with beliefs. The essence is that your "emotional account" is in deficit. To put it bluntly, this term is simple. It refers to those feelings of relaxation, pleasure and stability that you usually save, just like the battery of your mobile phone. If you commute for 2 hours every day, work overtime until 10 o'clock, and help your children with homework when you get home, without even taking 10 minutes to relax, your account will be overdrawn. Don't mention a work mistake, even if the delivery is 5 minutes late, you will be fried. I had a visitor before who was an administrator of a state-owned enterprise. She was known for her good temper. Even when the property management company came to collect fees, she had to hand out bottles of water. Because she had to attend the company's anniversary celebration event for three months in a row, she only slept 5 hours a day. Finally, because the cleaning lady accidentally knocked over the meat on her table, she cried for half an hour on the spot. Do you think she doesn't know how to manage her emotions? I just feel so tired that I don’t have any extra energy to adjust. In this case, do you ask her to stop for 3 seconds to think about her beliefs? It's totally useless. The best thing to do is to recharge the account first - even if you watch two funny jokes for 10 minutes every day, don't schedule a full schedule on weekends, and spend an afternoon on the sofa watching TV series, it will be more useful than forcing yourself to "suffer your temper".

Of course, many people still think that "poor emotional management" itself is a false proposition. I actually agree with part of this statement. My friend who was doing UI design used to work in a small company. His boss thought about it every day, and asked him to change the plan to be launched tomorrow to version 8 today. Every time he raised objections, the boss said, "Young people should pay attention to emotional management and stop being so impetuous." Later, he resigned directly and joined a large factory with standardized processes. The requirements were clearly stated at one time, and the revisions had clear reasons. He worked for almost a year, and his voice did not even get louder. You see, many times it’s not that you have poor emotional management, but that the people around you or the environment you are in are constantly consuming you, but in turn require you to be “sensible” and “emotionally stable”. At this time, if you force yourself to change your temper, that is not called emotional management, it is called self-PUA.

To be honest, I have been doing emotional counseling for almost 6 years, and the people I have seen the most are not people who "cannot manage emotions", but people who regard "poor emotional management" as a shackle. When I lose my temper, I attack myself. When I feel sad, I feel vulnerable. Even when I get angry, I pinch my watch and tell myself, "I must calm down within 3 minutes, otherwise I have failed to manage my emotions." A while ago, I was working on a book manuscript by myself. I stayed up for a week. My cat jumped on the table and closed the document I had just finished writing. I was so angry that I almost threw the cat out. Later, I sat on the sofa and took two minutes to recover. I was not angry with the cat at all. It was because I had only slept 4 hours a day for a week and ate takeout for three days in a row. My body had already protested. I turned off the computer that day, went downstairs to have a meal of hairy tripe hot pot, and slept for 12 hours when I came back. When I got up the next day, I started writing again. My efficiency was twice as high as before, and I could easily open a can for the cat when he came to rub me.

You see, emotions are never the enemy. The so-called "poor emotional management" is actually just a chicken letter sent to you by it. Either tell you that your current thoughts are over the top, or tell you that you are too tired and should take a rest, or tell you that the current environment is not right for you to run away. Don't find it annoying as soon as you receive the letter, throw it away and blame yourself for not being able to receive the letter. Open it and read what is written inside, which is more important than anything else. Oh, by the way, if you can't help but lose your temper next time, don't blame yourself for poor emotional management. First, feel your stomach to see if you are hungry and see if you haven't slept enough recently. If it doesn't work, try changing places. It will be more effective than drinking 100 bowls of chicken soup to stabilize your mood.