How do you react when someone at work or in your company annoys you?
"My colleague Jessica is so annoying!"
I hear that every day. Have you said the same thing? I certainly have!
I remember this one incident at work. I was in a meeting, the customer was very upset, and I was very bad at calming her down. The more panicked and frustrated I became, the angrier and upset she became. I felt helpless; the room was full of people and no one came to my rescue.
I resorted to something I didn't like to do, which was to ask my manager for help; I got met with shugged shoulders.
“The customer should give me an easier time! AND MY MANAGER, well, my manager should be more responsive and helpful. My colleagues?! Well, they only help when there’s something in it for them.”
At this point I was furious!
You know where it got me? Nowhere.
"They should be different. Why don't they do what I ask them to do?"
It would be a great world if I had that kind of power to instantly change someone into how I wanted them to be!
The world doesn't work that way.
This article is not about the situations you encounter being your fault or that you’re wrong. It’s to give you a different perspective... and most of all to empower you. You might find, your situations start to transform.
What we want for you, is to be able to make an even bigger difference to your team, your leadership and, most of all, yourself.
What was really going on in my situation?
I felt anxious, frustrated and helpless, and I thought my colleagues and my manager were to blame.
The more I thought they were the problem, the more my anxiety, frustration and helplessness grew.
I found myself in a deadly cycle.
Now, hindsight is a beautiful thing.
BUT
Let’s say I look back on the incident and reflected. (I’m sure you can already see what I couldn’t!)
My manager was throwing me in the deep end to train me.
My colleagues were all extremely busy.
The customer... well someone had just died.
What am I being triggered by?
First let’s identify what a trigger is.
A trigger is an automatic reaction to something. It can be people, messages, emails, a song, a smell, or something else. How can you tell that you're being triggered? You react with extreme discomfort.
So, what triggers me?
A situation where something happens and I feel like I'm in trouble.
I like to be in control. I like it when others like me and think I'm doing a great job.
To top it all off, I've this recurring question floating around in my head, "Am I doing it right?"
Being empowered and empowering others around you, doesn’t mean you have to get it right all the time or being in control of every situation.
It's about the ability to know your triggers, recognize them and choose a different response. And that, of course, takes practice.
If this resonates with you, and you’d like to transform your triggers at work to have:
Clarity and assertiveness in conversations with peers and leaders within the company
Effectiveness in communicating with your team
Resilience and satisfaction in the work environment
I’d love to invite you to join us in our free workshop, where we explore your triggers and create new behaviors.
Book in for a chat: https://go.oncehub.com/LicenceToLeadInformalTalk
