The Role of Feelings at Work
It can be confusing and uncomfortable to wade through our negative feelings at work and come out the other side in a constructive way. But feelings have something important to tell us, if we can capture their wisdom and not let them derail us.
1. Identify the feeling and its trigger
How are you feeling, and what instigated that feeling? This belongs in the "easier said than done" category. See if you can name the feeling and pinpoint when it was triggered. Try to separate the trigger from a specific person and identify it as a pattern. Like a fish swimming in water, some people swim in their feelings perpetually and don't recognize them as distinct from a peaceful baseline. The more you can recognize what I'll call "peaceful, untriggered existence" and juxtapose it with the times when you're in a heightened feeling state, the more you can begin to allow "peaceful, untriggered existence" its rightful place at the helm and let your feelings be the navigational stars.
2. Own it
A few weeks ago I wrote about boundaries with the title "My Boundaries are for Me". Similarly, your feelings are for you. Do not make your feelings someone else's problem to fix. The fact that you had a reaction to something another person said - that is for you to process. If your relationship is sufficiently solid that you can actually tell the person how their behavior made you feel (few relationships are that solid in the workplace unfortunately), that is a gift you are giving the other person (assuming you give the feedback humbly with tact and it is not spun into an attack). However, telling the person who triggered you is not going to make the feeling pattern within you go away. This is good news and bad news. It means you have the power to alter your patterns, but it’s more work for you. In conclusion: your feelings are for you and no one else.
So how do you process the feelings? Any form of reflection, really. (Do you make time for reflection?) Art, journaling, talking with a professional or a friend skilled in listening, contemplating, meditating, time in nature, etc. What you're doing is getting to know the feeling and its trigger so you take some mystery and thus power away from it. The next time it happens, it won't blindside you and it won’t sting so much. You'll be able to say "There's that pesky pattern again" which means you're one step further removed from its grip.
3. Extract the wisdom
This third step makes a feedback loop that helps you use your feelings as a wisdom compass to guide you. This is how you can use your feelings to actually be better at your work (read: feelings at work are not automatically a liability, but can be an asset). Feelings have information in them. So once you've begun compartmentalizing the internal work of processing the feeling, you can ask yourself what the takeaway is within the work context. Here are some generalized examples:
If you're feeling nervous about an upcoming presentation, it might mean that presentation is really important to you. it might mean you need to face the fact that you should spend more time preparing.
If you're feeling resistant about a team decision, it might mean you didn't share all of the ideas in your head about the other options. It might mean you still don’t understand why consensus was reached on that decision.
If you're feeling frustrated with an employee, it might mean your expectations are too high. Or it might mean their performance is too low. Or both.
If you're feeling envious of a colleague, it might mean that you are sensing under-tapped potential within yourself.
If you’re feeling impatient, it might mean you need to slow down. Or it might mean you need to speak up about the urgency you feel.
So what we are talking about here is mining the wisdom so you can bring it back to your work to inform your next step. If you're not sure, you can simply ask yourself, what is this experience trying to tell me?
If you are listening, you will hear the answer.
