Avoiding Emotional Overreaction at Work

Guest post by: Joan Burge
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Setting Healthy Boundaries at Work - By Joan Burge

Take a moment as you’re reading this to tune the noises of life out a bit and open up your mind. Think about something that has happened to you that made you really angry or upset. Really try to recall the specifics of whatever it might have been and see if you can start to feel the emotions of that event creeping back up inside you. Now, cause yourself to realize that whatever it might have been is in the past and it isn’t really entirely worth focusing on. Calm yourself down and bring your mind back to a peaceful center. And with that, you have become emotionally intelligent. Well, not entirely, but it’s a start.

The concept of Emotional Intelligence has been around since the early 1900’s, and it has come a long way and become studied more and more heavily as it is related to the workplace. If you are wondering how EI fits into everyday work, take a look at this example. A coworker, after reading through some of your work, has noticed several grammatical errors and is pointing them out to you in front of another colleague. The natural internal response is to start getting angry and stewing about how upset you are with that person. This can be compared to the exercise I had you try in the opening paragraph. When blood starts to boil and tempers build up in the workplace, it sometimes takes all of our effort to keep things rational and sane. This is a simple example of where emotional intelligence comes in.

Some people ask why it’s even worth trying to control your emotions, and what the benefit might be. Some of the side effects of triggered emotions tend to be becoming passive aggressive and even avoiding communication altogether. Obviously, these types of emotional reactions can create a serious roadblock in workplace communications. One of the first steps to avoiding emotional overreaction is to identify your emotional triggers. Sometimes, it’s worth sitting down with a pen and a piece of paper and writing out what gets you emotionally engaged. These don’t always have to be things that someone might say to you. They might sometimes even be a certain person that you have to interact with. Once you have identified these emotional triggers, you can be better prepared to face them if they are to come up in a conversation in the workplace. The one certainty is that it will take practice to begin having this control, and you may never grasp it fully, but starting the process will move you closer with avoiding emotion at work and actually having more conversations.

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Setting Healthy Boundaries at Work - By Joan Burge

About the Author: Joan Burge

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Joan Burge has been a visionary for administrative training and development since 1990. One of the first to venture into the administrative training industry, she has become an international administrative expert, trainer, author, and consultant. Joan Burge equips administrative professionals to move beyond task work to higher-level functions that meet the ever-changing demands of todays workplace. Best known for her highly-acclaimed Star Achievement Series®, a 12-part Certification and Designation training program designed to promote Star Performance among administrative, support and front-line staff. She is the creator and host of the Annual Conference for Administrative Excellence, the World Class Assistant Certificate program, and more than 40 customized workshops and seminars for administrative professionals. Joan's most recent work Who Took My Pen ... Again? (2012 Burge, Fraze, Freeman) joins her many other groundbreaking books for the administrative profession which include Underneath It All; Postgraduate Level Revelations Lift Administrative Assistants to New Heights, Become an Inner Circle Assistant, 3 other books and 15 workbooks. She is the editor of Monday Motivators weekly e-zine and has been published in more than 100 trade journals. With her passion to fill a niche in the administrative education arena, she continually explores what is necessary to excel in that position. Before starting Office Dynamics International, Joan was an administrative professional for 20 years in 12 different companies in 5 states. She worked her way up from receptionist to assisting CEOs, serving in a variety of industries ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies.
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