One thing you can control for a positive impact on business

Are you feeling out of control these days? You’re not alone. There is one thing you can control: yourself.

You have free will and you are driving the bus of your reactions to people, events and circumstances around you. How you choose to respond to exterior events around you will determine how successfully you move through life. The choice is yours and will make all the difference in the outcomes you experience.

A helpful place to start regaining control is to become aware of your judgments, towards yourself and others. Let’s take a closer look. Your judgements are an element of your filters.

In Sherpa Executive Coaching, we refer to your filters as your knowledge, experience and values that directly influence how you listen, think and communicate. Your filters are capable of deleting and distorting information which directly impacts the words you use.

When it comes to feeling out of control one of your filters may be a belief you hold: the belief that in order to feel safe and confident you must be in control of your environment, including the people around you. When something or someone in your environment steps out of your perception or filter of control your anxiety goes up along with your ability to tune into solution based thinking. Let’s take a closer look at the filter of judgement.

On a scale from 0-100%, what percentage of your thoughts during the day flow from a judgment. For example, when something does not work out the way you want it to, where does your mind go? What specific thoughts pop up in your mind about the undesirable event or situation? What judgment do you make, towards yourself or others?

If you want to see clearly, take the plank (judgment) out of your own eye. What makes up your plank? Clarity of focus leads to accuracy of response. Metacognition is the awareness and understanding of your thought processes. Simply put, it’s thinking about what you are thinking about.

Once you have identified the thought that led to a negative emotion (remember, an emotion is your body’s response to your thought life), you can then choose to change the channel of your focus: from the perceived problem or undesirable outcome to a thought that promotes innovation for solution and positive connection with yourself and people around you.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the capacity, skill or ability to identify, assess and manage the emotions of one’s self or others and of groups (Source: Wolfram Alpha).

EQ includes 4 phases posed as questions worth your reflection:

• How aware am I of my own emotions? Perceptions, beliefs, assumptions that trigger my emotions? Judgments?
• How capable am I at managing my own emotions? You can control your emotions.
• How aware am I of the emotions of other people?
• How capable am I at managing the emotions of other people? You may not be able to control the emotions of other people however, you can control how you choose to respond to them.

Studies have continued to point to one big fat behavior that is directly linked to positive leadership and impact on business and relationships: impulse control. Your ability to effectively lead and connect with others is in direct correlation to your ability to practice the behavior of impulse control: the ability to control your desire for immediate satisfaction will directly influence success in relationships, school and career.

What does that look like? It is the ability to pause before responding and intentionally choose words and behaviors that align with the highest version of who you are committed to being.

Imagine a stage and on the stage is your “drama.” You are the producer of this drama. You can cast yourself as the main character or not.

When you choose to get off the stage, you disassociate yourself from the chaos associated with the drama around you. You become the observer of the drama vs. the main character. From this place of observation you can then consciously choose how you want to respond rather than

reacting to the environment and people around you. Judgments and criticisms always walk hand in hand with drama. Authentic power is the ability to separate the person from the issue at hand.

Anger is one of the quickest emotions to sift through your body. It’s most commonly fueled by fear: fear of not being right, liked or understood. Anger also releasing a chemical in the brain that is addictive. The more anger you give to the center stage of your thoughts the madder you will become. Starve it of your attention and you will become a free man or woman.

Impulse control involves the ability to override your innate desire for immediate gratification. Negative behaviors often associated with lack of impulse control include: bullying; micro-managing people; ugly talk; defensive behavior and stone walling. In neuroscience, this type of behavior is fueled by “BOTTOM UP” thinking (fight/flight/freeze: primal brain).

Positive behaviors linked to the art of impulse control include: appreciative inquiry; effective questioning; empathetic responses; reflection; intentional responses fueled by a desire to understand another’s point of view. In neuroscience this type of behavior is fueled by “top down” control which flows from the frontal cortex, executive thinking part of the brain that is solution oriented.

Practice: The more you practice delaying gratification of your strong impulsive and reactive behavior due to feeling out of control, the more in control you will actually become. Your brain will actually retrain itself in the direction of impulse control which will lead to the all powerful

Pause and give yourself the space to up your EQ game in life along with your IMPACT in BUSINESS and personal life.

Take Action:

When you feel out of control along with a strong urge towards non-productive behavior. Stop, breathe, imagine stepping off of the stage of drama and take a seat as the observer in the theater of your mind. Ask yourself:

• What is this really about? Is this mine or someone else’s?
• What filter is at play?
• How do I want to separate the person from the issue?
• What can I control?
• Now moving forward what is my action plan when I feel out of control?

When training for my black belts in Tae Kwon Do, my success in the ring was in direct proportion to my reflection and practice outside of the ring. The same holds true for regaining a sense of control in the midst of feeling out of control and the choice to do so is up to you.

  Lauren E Miller has a Masters in Adult Education with a Certification in Human Resources Development. She has personally conquered two of life’s top stressors at the same time, advanced cancer and divorce. Now Google’s #1 Stress Relief Expert, Award Winning Author, HRD Trainer and Certified Sherpa Executive Coach, Lauren provides process driven programs and custom trainings with structure, guidance, support and accountability designed to create positive change in behavior resulting in positive impact on business (IOB) and life purpose. Explore More: http://LaurenEMiller.com