How to control your emotion as a leader

One of the most common questions that I get when managing and leading others is Sonia, how do I be less emotional? And I know exactly what you mean when you say that. And today I want to share some great tips and ideas for you that are going to change not only how you think about emotions, but that is also going to help you get the control and the choice that you want when it comes to reacting and responding in those situations. Stay with me to find out more. If you don’t want to miss a single tip or strategy, that’s going to help you become the leader that you want to be and that we all need, then hit the subscribe button and hit that bell so that you get alerted whenever I post a new video. For those of you who don’t know me,

my name is Sonia Gavira and I’ve been a leadership and success coach for around 20 years now, working with leaders at all levels in organizations. And today, I want to give you some tips, some tools, and some ideas that are going to help you get back control of yourself in those situations where maybe you lose it a little bit and crucially give you more choices when it comes to the behavior that you exhibit in the situations.

So, first of all, I want you to understand one key thing. We are emotional beings that think, not thinking beings that feel. And what does this mean? Well, actually it means that you don’t really want to be less emotional. In fact, as a human being, you can’t really be less emotional, but what you do want is to get control over when you express your emotions and how you do it.

And this starts with recognizing where it is in your body, that you feel an emotion, and to name it, I give it a name which leads me to tip number one, practice, recognizing where in your body, you first feel an emotion and then name that image. So for example, if somebody says something and you get angry, where is it that you feel it in your body?

For me, for example, I feel it in my chest and I feel it in my stomach, they both tend to contract. And then somehow it’s like, it travels around my body and makes me feel quite hot. Actually. I’m quite flustered. When do you feel anger and how does it make you feel? Let me know in the comments below. Another feeling that I find quite easy to identify is fear.

And that also gets me in my stomach, but it makes me feel quite sick. And then I also tend to get a headache. Now, the reason that I want you to do this is that that physical feeling is the first thing that happens when we get an emotion. When we are subjected to an emotion, we get a physical response in our body.

And then our brain will interpret that as an emotion. Now, if you can, for example, say, feel something. So for me, it can be my stomach, maybe contracting or my chest contracting. And I go, oh, I’m getting angry. Then that process of first saying, oh, oh, and then saying, I’m getting angry gives

my brain, my thinking brain time to react, time to react and then choose a more appropriate response. Tip number two, take a breath or two. And that is actually also linked to breath number one. Oh, breath, number one, tip number one. So when I say, oh, I am almost taking a breath there. Now the reason I say take a breath is that actually physically it will calm your nervous system.

And then what that will do is it will give you not only that more calming influence but a little bit of time to respond and to choose your response rather than react. I mean, have you ever got home after a really difficult day and gone, oh, why did I say that? Or even why did I do that again? Well, I know that that’s exactly what you want to avoid.

So practice tip number one and tip number two together, and notice how everything will seem to slow down, giving you time to think, giving you time to respond in a much better way. When do you usually feel that you’re being too emotional? What is the emotion that gets you and that you find difficult to control? Let me know in the comments below,

and then there’s tip number three. Don’t avoid situations where you might react. I know it’s really easy to do that, but practice definitely makes perfect in this situation. It’s impossible to get better at this. If you don’t expose yourself to these situations, you can only improve by actually going through it and possibly getting them wrong. So cheers for times that are less do-or-die moments.

And when you get home and go, oh, I did it again. Take some time, take some time to digest what it is that happened, replay it back in your mind, but also physically notice what it is that you were feeling and where you were feeling it. Because then I want you to go through six steps. One where you feel the emotion,

where in your body – you felt that emotion. Two, what the emotion actually is? Name it. Three, what was your response go through what your response was. Four, what was the outcome? What actually happened? Five, what’s the outcome that you actually want? And six, what does the response need to be in order for you to get that outcome? So just to recap,

one notice where you feel an emotion physically in your body and name it. Two take a breath, take a breath, literally, because that will calm your system, and three practice, practice, practice, practice, and go over the situation and go through those six steps so that you figure out what the outcome is that you want and how you need to respond to get that outcome.

Now, if you’re interested in more tips and tools that can help you on your leadership journey, I have a great little ebook called a Roadmap to Leadership Success that you can get for just 27 pounds and which is going to help you identify the next steps for your success as a leader in your organization, check out the link in the description below. And remember if you found this valuable,

then please like, and share this video. Tell me what it is that helped you most today, and remember to subscribe and hit that bell so that you get an alert. Whenever my next video is great. Speak to you. Bye.

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