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Are You MAD?

Guest post by: Kathryne Pusch

Article Overview: Stress in the business world and our personal lives can lead to poor decision-making. How can we better understand the source of our anger and choose to handle it more productively?

Are You MAD?

Not crazy. . . but angry? The business marketplace is a pressure-cooker. Our personal lives are often very stressful as well. All this stress can sometimes lead to behavioral reactions that surprise us—we never knew we could behave that way, or think those thoughts. We see people of all ages blaming their often incredible reactions on anger. “I was so mad I could not even think” is actually TRUE. Allowing anger to take over blocks one’s ability to think rationally.

Did you ever hear a friend or client say, “Well, I would never had reacted that way if he/she/you had not done this or that?” People want to blame their anger and their resultant behavior on someone or something else: a broker, a buyer, a seller, an attorney, a spouse, a child, or maybe just a rude driver in awful metro traffic. We may actually think of that event or person as the source of the anger. This is not true. No one or no thing is the source or OUR anger. It comes from within us. We choose to give vent to our own anger. We choose our own behaviors.

Dr. Sam Peeples has been quoted as saying "The circumstances of life, the events of life, and the people around me in life, do not make me the way I am, but reveal the way I am. . . . A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. (Proverbs 29:11)” I have in my office the “Attitude” sign, as I call it, and I have noticed it in many of my clients’ offices as well. Charles Swindoll wrote “I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. . . . We are in charge of our attitudes.”

Outbursts of anger can be likened to the red warning lights on your car dash. They are not the problem. They are the indicator that there may be a serious problem with one of the critical systems that keep your vehicle running at top performance. You know that you ignore them at your own risk. You know that it is your responsibility to investigate the source of the problem triggering the warning light. So it is with angry behaviors. You ignore the signal at your own peril. If you are angry, it would benefit you and all those around you to take the time and make the effort to discover the core issue within yourself that is the true source of that anger. Most anger is linked to fear—fear of failure, of rejection, of not getting what we believe we are entitled to, and often a fear of the unknown.

If you have fears related to your career, which is very common and understandable in such turbulent economic times, look for industry and community resources that offer support systems to ease the fear of the unknowns ahead. If you work alone or in a home office, isolation can be very stressful and destructive to your health. Find ways to be be in more social and business networking situations. Take advantage of all that your county, state, and national associations offer to make you more professional and effective with your clients. The structure is available to you to continue education, keep you on top of changes that will affect you, and provide many opportunities for networking with true professionals who can keep some of the pressure off you as you navigate the many difficult situations inherent in the marketplace.

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Article Tags: anger, decisionmaking, make better decisions, professional development, stress, understand anger



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