Do you ever wish that you could pause a situation, rewind and pull back what you just said or did? There are certainly days that I wish that I could reverse time and have a “do-over” of a conversation or situation. Sometimes words seem to fall out of our mouths, and we wish you could grab them back. What if you could prevent this? Read on!

Averting Blunders
​While we can’t change the past, we can slow down upcoming exchanges and events to avert some of the blunders that inescapably take place. How do you slow time? If you have been following the last few of my blogs, you know that it takes Emotional Intelligence.  

Become smarter
Emotional intelligence is when you become aware of your emotions and manage your emotions. Emotions are what dictate how we feel and subsequently what we say and do.  Becoming progressively more astute about what you are feeling requires that you “slow down time” and widen the gap between what happened and your reaction to what happened.

The gap you say?
Yes, there is a little space that I want you to check out. You want to scrutinize what transpired after an incident and before a reaction. That minuscule second of time between the two is the chief segment of time that we want to examine. 

Find your false story in the gap
When examining this chunk of time, you are looking to deduce what happened after an incident and what story you made up about that incident. It is that story that resulted in the feeling and then the reaction that you next had. I use the word “story” for a reason. Some may say, truth. However, it isn’t the truth. It is only our truth. It is the story we make up.

​Let's break it apart a little bit further

Part One – The incident
Something happens. 

• Someone says something. 
• You receive an email.  
• Perhaps you observed something such as a raised eyebrow or a shrug
• Maybe you just noticed an inflection in someone’s voice.  

It can be anything big or small.

​Part Two – Enter into the gap – The thought
What we mistakenly think happens after the incident is that we have a reaction. What is more accurate is that there is a gap of time after the incident, but before the reaction. In that time, much transpires inside your mind and through your body.

When that thing occurred;

• the comment was heard,
• the email received
• or the gesture witness,

you had a thought.  
Usually, it’s not a conscious thought. In most cases, you aren’t even remotely aware that there was anything going on, but trust me, it's there.

During this gap you have thoughts such as:

• That person's an idiot.
• They said that because they don't trust me.  
• What a waste of time.
• They don’t care.
• I don't know if I can handle this. 
• Hey, they really do love me.

​Part Three – Still in the gap – The feeling
The thought about the incident then creates the feeling. You experience fear, anxiety, or frustration.  That feeling is felt in your body. 

• You tense. 
• You pull back.
• You recoil. 
• You become alert and ready for a fight.
• You lean in. 
• You soften

​Part Four – The reaction
It is the thought and the feeling about the incidence that dictates the way you respond or react.  This includes what you say and what you do.

Those times when the words fall out of our mouth, and we wish we could grab them back are usually reactions. When we get angry over someone’s insensitive comment, it’s usually because we weren’t able to process the thoughts and feelings attached to that hot spot they just hit. Thus, we lash back hurtfully. ​

​REDO of Part Four – The response 
When we widen that gap of time between what happened and our subsequent actions, we can first get clear on the story we are making up in our head and our feelings attached to that story. When we do that, we have a choice to believe that story or alter it. 

• Incident: Incentive comment from partner
  
• Thought: He doesn’t love me 
  
• Feeling: Hurt 
  
• Unconscious Reaction: Stomp out of the the room and busy yourself with other tasks so as to avoid that person.
  

OR Emotionally Intelligent way:

• Incident: Incentive comment from partner 
• Thought: He’s had a long day. I know he loves me. He didn't mean that.
• Feeling: Compassion
• Conscious Response:  Let him know your going to work on something for a few minutes, giving him some space. Then later, come back and check in. 

The same could be true at work. Perhaps you feel that your boss is attacking you and your feeling backed into a corner. The reaction might be to get angry and come out fighting. Instead, by widening that gap, your subsequent thoughts and feelings can be different.

A person with high Emotional Intelligence might notice: 
"I’m feeling attacked and notice my body getting into fight or flight mode. Wait a minute. I know I’m a good person. I think maybe what he’s really trying to say is more about the project and not me. It might be his fear of failure coming through. We are actually on the same side. I sure as heck don’t want this project to fail at this either."
Our response, after this thoughtful pause in our minds, will across more in control than with fists flying. The words that consciously come out of our mouth, rather than fall out, will serve to move the project and the relationship forward. 

Increase Awareness Means Increased Control
When you are more aware, mindful and conscious, you get to choose your response. This increased awareness and choice of action is Emotional Intelligence. Not only are you aware of your emotions, but you are managing them. This increased awareness allows you to examine your thoughts and feelings and decide if they are true. Then, you can change them in you want. What you’ll find if you do this more and more, is that a lot of your thoughts and feelings are very unhelpful, and you’ll want to do some work on changing them!

Do you sometimes find that your emotions sneak up on you suddenly your afraid of losing it? Either the tears threaten to leak out, or the anger boils over before you can control it. You are not alone. Many women have had the experience of being hijacked by their emotions. But here is the thing, It's not about having emotions, it's about not being able to control them. ​What you need to learn is to recognize your emotions and then manage them. You need to develop your emotional intelligence.

Become aware of and then manage your emotions
Emotionally intelligent managers kick butt over their unaware and knowledgeable deficient peers. These aware leaders not only know what their emotions are, but they can manage their emotions. That means they are in control of how they feel versus their feelings being in control of them. 
​
Emotional Intelligence increases leader effectiveness
An individual who is high in EI rarely has their thoughts hijack them. Emotionally Intelligent Leaders don’t lose it when someone says something that sparks their anger or annoyance. A leader who is in control of what’s going on inside of them will be aware they are irritated, but be able to catch themselves before they roll their eyes, let out a sigh or have a sarcastic comment slip out.

How do you learn this?
Individuals that have high EI are incredibly aware. They know what triggers them. They are clear on what is going on inside of their head. They can identify thoughts and feelings. They name them. You my dear, need to become aware of what's going on inside of your mind. To increase your level of EI, you need to become aware of your thoughts. 

​Two Steps to Emotional Intelligence
Step 1 – Recognize emotions
Step 2 – Manage emotions

​Do you know what your thought was?
It’s the thought part we want to drill down deeper into and see what’s going on there. That thought is dictating your emotion. We want to get to the point where you are aware of the thought and able to change it if need be.

Getting clear on your thoughts
To get a better understanding of what you are thinking, you have to slow down time. You have to widen that gap between the stimulus and the consequential feeling. It’s is like putting a magnifying glass on the event and your emotion and see if you can see in between the two. You want to detect what thought was there in between the event and the emotion.

​It starts with reflection
To get awareness of what is going on in that gap requires intentional thinking. You must create a routine that has you look daily at that space between what happened and how you reacted. It’s hard in the moment. You will get there over time. Initially, though you will want to look back at what has happened and reflect on it. 

Start with journaling
The best way to get this slow-motion replay effect is to spend time journaling. When you set aside a few minutes to let your thoughts and emotions flow on paper, you’ll start to see more of what is there. Doing this writing without judgment is critical. You must let your pen just flow. To get to that uninhibited place will take time and practice. It's worth the effort to do that. 

​The 6 tricks to rewarding reflective journaling

• Set aside 10 minutes every day to journal. Preferably at the same time every day.
• Eliminate distractions. Put your phone on the other side of the room. Shut your door.
• Pick a particular event or thing you are ruminating about. 
• Write freely for the first ¾ of your time. Note the event, what happened. The emotions you were feeling. The things they said or did that irritated you. Note who else was involved. 
• Towards the later ¼ of your time begin to allow yourself to write about the thoughts going on that led to the emotion. Answer the question: “What did I think about this person, event or circumstance.”
• Use journal prompts such as these:
  • This happened….
  • I said this in my head about it….
  • ​As a result, the emotion I felt was…

​Do the work - Make the effort
Working on this first step of bringing awareness to your emotions and feelings can be hard work. We don’t naturally go there. It will feel weird and awkward perhaps for a while. In doing so, though, you will automatically become more aware of what’s going on inside of you that is controlling what is going on outside of you. Gradually you’ll gain back the control and learn to manage your feelings and responses to people and events. It takes time. Be patient with yourself. When you do, you’ll find it was worth the effort and commitment. 

​Do not, under any circumstance, show emotions at work. Zero emotions are important for Leaders!

You’ve heard the adage: don’t let them see you sweat. Similarly, we learn, don’t let them see you angry, don’t lose it and certainly don’t ever cry. Perhaps a few “good” emotions are ok, but only in moderation. Heaven forbid we are called soft. ​Does this sound familiar?

We all have emotions
We cannot stop feeling. In truth, we do feel angry on occasions.  Sometimes we are embarrassed, annoyed, frustrated, irritated, or feel hurt. At other times, we are excited, overjoyed or thrilled. Then there are the times we feel frazzled, overwhelmed or panicked. In any given day we could have hundreds of feelings pass through us. 

These moods, sensations and thoughts impact our work
Most of us have been trained to push those emotions down. Perhaps not consciously, but subconsciously we’ve learned to set aside how we are feeling and just get the job done. We’ve been trained not to show what we are feeling.
We put fake smiles. We armor up with a mask to prevent people from seeing what’s going on inside. We push down the rage, the sadness, and the fear. 
 
We can't hide emotions
Nevertheless, our emotions are often as plain as the nose on our face. The way we feel oozes out of us. Our anger seeps out. Our rage drips through the sarcasm in our voice.  The irritation is visible in her eyebrow raises and our audible sighs. Everyone around us clearly knows we have feelings; the challenge is that we are not clearly expressing our emotions.  

You need a higher EI (Emotional Intelligence)
Emotional intelligence is not only becoming more aware of your emotions but managing your emotions. It is the managing part that is extremely critical in leadership. But it starts with awareness. You need to know when your buttons are pushed and catch yourself before you react.  

Awareness prevents knee-jerk reactions

• If someone asks you to send him or her a document that you sent them twice already, you need to recognize the annoyance and manage it before you react with a snotagram (snot-o-gram according to the urban dictionary is: a bitchy, critical memo with attitude.)
• When a staff messes up publicly, you need to identify your embarrassment and fear of what the community will think of you as a leader before you lash out at the staff’s error.
• When you get challenged on your ideas, recognizing that the feeling of being judged could push you into defensive mode if you don’t manage your emotions. Instead, when you are aware that you're feeling the urge to defend your idea, a deep breath might help you to regroup and move back to passionately sharing your idea with enthusiasm rather than defend. You might get curious about their fears, which is more proactive than defensiveness. 

Have you ever felt like an outsider? 
Perhaps you were the one individual in the room that no one was talking to you.
It sucks.
Have you ever felt that not one cares about you?
Maybe your boss didn't have a clue what you were doing or why you are doing it?
​That feeling sucks too.

I’ve felt I’m an outsider, and I bet you have too
Not all the time, but you’ve probably felt that sense that no one cares about you. You walked into a meeting, and there was a group on the side talking. They didn’t seem to notice that you had entered the room. No raised heads. No eye contact. You overheard their conversation and knew you have something to contribute, but they didn’t acknowledge you, let alone asked for your opinion. Ouch!

It happens
Most of the time you can shrug it off knowing it wasn’t that they didn’t care about you or your ideas. They were just engrossed in their conversation. Perhaps later they did look up, invite you over and away you went. 

That feeling sucks
It’s that initial feeling, though, of not being noticed or not perceiving you are a valuable part of the group that, sad to say, many employees feel on an ongoing basis. They don’t get the impression they are seen, nor do they feel appreciated.  Far too often, employees feel insignificant, secondary and dispensable. 

These people give less than 100%
When you don’t feel respected, you don’t commit to your work. That means you are producing significantly less than 100% of what you are capable of generating. 
When you don’t feel like you matter, that your work counts or that you are cared about, you put your time in and go home. Barely. 

You want 100% employee buy-in
My guess is you want more of your team. I suspect you are looking for committed, dedicated and loyal staff. I bet you want people who are invested and care about the work they are doing, the quality of their work, and the impact they are making.

How do you get that? 
You care. Simply put:

• you care about your staff as individuals, 
• you care about the work they are doing and 
• you care about the contribution they are making.

When you change your interactions with your staff so that they feel that you care about them, their work and their impact, you will find yourself bragging to others about your stellar team players.

3)    Use all-inclusive language

Approach conversations as if you are all in it together, because you really are all in it together!
Use your words to communicate that everything you are doing is connected, because everything is truly connected!

You can see this in the above example about goals.

• “I’m expecting that we…”.

It was clear that the whole team is in it together. Yes, each practitioner works on their own with individual clients. But the overall work they are doing is united.

Discovering you do have a stellar team
Make these deeper connections with your staff:

• Relate to them as individuals
• Give them meaningful work and share that meaning with them
• Acknowledge their contributions to the whole team and vision

When you do this you’ll discover your stellar team sharing ideas, working together and helping each other out. Yes, it will be kind of like a family. After all, isn’t that what we want? "Let's all get along, work through challenges we encounter and support each other in the process. 
​