If you’ve recently read anything about getting ahead at work, you might have read that people with high emotional intelligence (EI) are more likely to get hired, promoted and earn better salaries. Why does emotional intelligence have such an impact on elevating your career? Because emotional intelligence gives you the ability to identify and regulate your emotions and understand the emotions the others. But are you tuned in to your feelings and recognizing your own triggers?
A trigger is something that sets off an emotional reaction in the form of a memory or flashback related to trauma. Raised voices might trigger a memory of childhood abuse. The smell of beer might trigger a memory of feeling unsafe around a parent who was drinking. Hearing certain words or phrases might remind you of an abusive situation. Someone abruptly entering your office and quickly closing the door could trigger a memory of being punished.
Some of the triggers may not even make sense to anyone but you. Everyone is different. But recognizing the emotions behind your triggers will get you one step closer to your next win.
Often when we are triggered it’s easy to identify those base emotions. Fear. Anger. Anxiety. Sadness.
Putting words to our feelings can be a struggle — especially when those words are exchanged with someone we care about on issues packed with emotional complexity. But the work begins when we are able to specifically identify those emotions behind being upset, pissed off or scared.
The past shapes our present and helps us identify who we are and where we are headed. But if you can’t move passed the past, you can feel trapped by your situation and unable to move forward in your life. When we recognize where the emotions come from, we can face those fears and reassure ourselves that our past trauma is not in the present. This is also great for identifying emotional reactions.
You can also use a feeling circle (like the one pictured above) to understand why you feel certain things in your relationships with other people. If a friend does something that hurts your feelings instead of understanding the base feeling of hurt, you can also use this to understand what’s behind that feeling and why you feel hurt.
If your partner or a co-worker upsets you, look at the feeling circle/chart to see what underlying feelings are triggered by that action. Does it make you feel disconnected, rejected or ignored?
When we understand why we feel something we can A) Communicate our feelings. “I feel hurt because I felt uncared for.” B) Identify where we need to heal our traumas.
We can all recognize times where we may have been guilty of silencing our feelings in our relationships. We may have experienced times where we were being ridiculed for our feelings so we learn how to not have them (or rather suppress them). I’m guilty of saying, “I’m fine,” even when I’m not, or when I just couldn’t find the right word or want to take the time to explain what I was feeling.
Once you can re-learn how to tap into, get to the core and express your feelings in a healthy, productive way, you’ll be well on your way to building better relationships, reducing team stress, defusing conflict and improving job satisfaction. Ultimately, understanding your own triggers will improve your emotional intelligence and give you the potential to increase team productivity and staff retention. You may have some bad days or run into difficult coworkers, but you can be empowered to not let them impair you—you can live your life and serve your purpose.
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