Emotions at Work , how to deal with it? Emotional issues and how to deal with emotions at work are very important for working people in this era.
Many people say that to be successful in a professional job, you need to separate work and personal life. Work is work, and your feelings and the life you are living are personal. If you can do that, you will become a professional. But the question is, can you smile and say hello to a coworker when you meet him at a coffee shop? If he is the one who badmouths you behind your back to your boss?
“The work is finished, but the emotions are not.”
Work conflicts or conflicts that arise from work often cause us to have unhappy emotions or feelings with the people we work with, or the results of the work are not as desired. These emotions or feelings do not only occur when working in a team, but when working alone and receiving feedback or results that are not as expected can also make us want to throw all the work on the table away. Both of these matters are not specifically about people or work, but are directly related to emotions and feelings.
“You are also a human being!”
The first thing you need to understand before you start calling yourself unprofessional is that it’s okay to feel emotions. You’re a human being too. It’s normal to feel emotions and feelings at work. If you’re a robot, well, that’s a different story. We spend more than a third of our day at work, so it’s no wonder that work can take a toll on our mental health.
Although it is normal for people who go to work every day like you to encounter it all the time, it is one of the obstacles that makes you stuck in those emotions and feelings, which may miss the opportunity to advance. Therefore, to help increase your professionalism, these are “How to handle when there are bad emotions and feelings at work”.
How to Deal with Bad Moods and Feelings at Work
1. Listen
Let’s start by being still and listening to your body. What is it trying to communicate to you? Often, we can feel something in our body that is wrong before we can pinpoint what it is. Your face may be flushed, your eyes may be burning, or your heart may be beating audibly fast. This means that you are more anxious than you realize.
A big no-no is to avoid making any decisions, no matter how big or small, if possible. Scientific studies have shown that when people are anxious about something, their decision-making abilities are reduced.
2. Learn the company culture
Every company has a different culture, and some companies are more emotionally vulnerable than others. Even if you work for a company that is open to discussing emotions, you should be mindful of the boundaries you share. To put it simply, your CEO doesn’t want to know that your performance is down because you just broke up with your partner, or that you’re slower on your assignments because you were partying with friends, for example.
3. Find a safe person
In a world where we all have to try to survive every day, it would be great if you had a trusted coworker to share your feelings with, both good and bad. However, as every working person knows, not everyone can be a safe coworker for you, or it wouldn’t be considered a survival. Try to find a trusted ally in the workplace with whom you can vent when you feel down.
4. Emotional openness
If you are in a managerial or supervisory position, you can set up an environment where all your coworkers are comfortable sharing their ideas with each other. Team hugs are another great way to build team strength. As a leader, when your employees have good relationships with each other and are good to you, they can be a superpower for you in your work.
5. Accept that you can’t choose your coworkers.
Unless you start your own company, it is impossible for you to choose your own coworkers. This is a matter of luck, which is beyond our control and unavoidable. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be best friends with your coworkers. Just do your own work and be friendly to everyone. Even if you can’t be best friends, you shouldn’t make more enemies at work.
6. Create boundaries
Spending time with social colleagues is also great, but you have to know the right balance. The more you hang out with them, the more emotional and work-related you are involved. The awkward situation arises when you have to discuss work or compensation that involves benefits. The personal and work-related friendships collide and become a real mess.
7. Prepare the tools
Sometimes it’s unavoidable to feel a lot of emotions at work. It’s important to have mental health tools at your disposal when you’re feeling this way, whether that’s keeping a journal, taking some time to breathe, or even reaching out for a sweet treat to help your body feel a little better.
8. Self-care
There are many things around you that can cause emotional outbursts at work. These are called big problems in your society or within your company, and they are not your fault. Taking care of yourself may not be the answer to ending problems caused by others, but it can help you manage your emotions and negative feelings. It is also one of the things that you can do without involving others. To help you take better care of yourself, you should do the following:
- Take vacations. Your vacations are one of the rewards you get from your job, so why not take them? Taking a vacation can help cool down the fuse that’s about to explode inside you. There’s also an interesting study from the World Health Organization that says working long hours increases your risk of cardiovascular disease. So take a break.
- Sleep Everything becomes more complicated when you are tired. Managing emotions, even small ones, but if you are experiencing fatigue, it may become an emotion that you cannot handle until it erupts. Therefore, get enough sleep to make your body strong and ready to face and deal with negative emotions and feelings all the time.
- Take a lunch break, even if it’s just for a few minutes. If you can, try to eat lunch outside of the office. Use your lunch break to eat mindfully and relax, instead of eating lunch at your desk and multitasking while shoveling rice into your mouth. It’s not really a lunch break if you don’t take a break.
- Know your limits. This is essential for your sanity. If you have a project that requires you to collaborate with someone who you know will be the enemy of your sanity, it might be worth saying no to the project to preserve your peace. Losing your job but preserving your sanity is worth it, isn’t it?
- Get professional help If your emotions and feelings at work are becoming too much to handle or are interfering with your personal life, talking to a mental health professional can be a great way to help you manage the emotions and feelings that are bothering you.
Conclusion
Even though you are part of the company’s engine that drives the company forward, don’t forget that you are also a human being. Emotions and feelings are one of the human elements that make humans different from any computer, program or AI.
When you have a bad mood or feeling at work, don’t let it follow you into your personal life. Think that work must end at work. All benefits, work or mistakes are just things that happen at work. When you come back to your personal life, leave the feelings and emotions from work there. Find a way to deal with them. It may be the methods above that you have read or the methods that you have discovered yourself. You can have emotions and feelings, but you must be able to manage them. Then you can be called a professional.
“Professionals are not robots. They have emotions and feelings, but it is how they handle them that makes them professional.”
Reference:
How to Deal With Emotions at Work
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