Stop Making Things Worse

In a Hole? STOP DIGGING!!!

This common-sense piece of advice is one of the most often violated. Things don’t go your way. Your board starts to move in a different direction than you planned. An employee mishandles a problem with a key customer. One of your teachers reacts poorly to a student’s behavior. A parent misconstrues the intent of your meeting on their child’s progress. Things are going to happen. You’re in the hole. You angrily flail around without a plan really to get out of it.

Ryan Holiday poses the question in The Daily Stoic, “How often is anger more destructive than what caused it?” Well, you know the answer, but you may not have thought of why that is:

Anger Shifts the Focus
Anger only compounds the problem and takes the focus away from the issue. When you react in anger, the discussion shifts to your behavior, especially as a leader. No longer is the issue a change in board direction, a problem with a key customer, or the student’s poor behavior. It is now about your behavior, your employee’s, or your teacher’s behavior. Your ability to impact the situation is greatly diminished if not destroyed.

The One Time
Here’s another significant downfall of letting anger get the best of you: They will never forget that “one time.” All of your work cultivating a calm demeanor can go up in smoke with just one incident where you lose it. And you may be totally justified in losing it, but that doesn’t matter to those around you. You destroy your credibility, and you destroy trust. It can take forever to get it back. Even if you do, they won’t forget that one time.

Now that you understand why anger has long-term effects, below are some ways to avoid it and quit digging that hole deeper:

You Have to be Proactive
Don’t wait to try and practice when the moment strikes. You won’t be successful. Cultivate a calm demeanor. It doesn’t always come naturally; even if you are the calmest person on earth, you have a point, an issue, that pushes your buttons and generates an angry reaction. You have to know what those points are. Take the time to reflect on those situations in which you have felt the anger beginning to rise. For me, I feel it in my throat and it happens when my motives are being questioned.

Use Your Mind’s Eye
Visualize yourself rising above the situation and hovering around observing. What body language would communicate calm? What facial expressions elicit patience? How can empathy (not necessarily agreement) be communicated?

Identify a Role Model
Find a role model you believe has a calm demeanor and study what elicits that. Remember that a role model can be someone close to you or not, personally known to you or not, alive or not.

Plan Ahead for Difficult Conversations
Have the conversation scripted out if you need. Writing down what you need to say makes you more clear-headed and, therefore, less likely to react in a destructive manner. Yes, it is awkward. Tell the other person, “This is weird, but I’ve written down what I need to say. I know it’s odd, but I want to get it right.” Then read it.

If you need a model for those difficult conversations, reach out to me. I have a good one I can provide.

In the meantime, reflect on those moments when anger got the best of you and then reflect on what you should have done differently. You will still feel the emotions, but you won’t be adding them to the equation, giving you a better chance of keeping things in balance.

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