Managing Emotions Under Pressure
Thursday, November 11th, 2010The audio portion of this broadcast is no longer available on-line.
|
Printer-friendly version
Send to friendSomeone has said, “All business is people business.” I would tend to agree, wouldn’t you? As you make your way through your work-world, your career, your job, your life, the success you achieve depends in great part on how other people feel about you and how you respond to them. And relationships can be very fragile. One cross word, one bad day, one mishandled conflict can cause great damage.
Obviously, you and I cannot control the other people we work with or for, but we can have an influence on those working relationships by the way we manage our emotions in difficult situations. The real issues surface when we’re in that pressure-cooker: the deadlines loom, the customers are unhappy, the boss is demanding, needed resources are missing–and on and on.
If we can learn to develop the kind of discipline that keeps us from saying things we regret when we’re tired or cranky, that helps us stay steady in the midst of whatever storm has just hit, not only will we be more successful in our jobs and careers, but more importantly, we’ll be a better representative of Jesus Christ to those with whom we rub shoulders each day.
Ask yourself this question: Does my temper ever get me into trouble? We know from scripture that anger is not always a wrong emotion; there are things about which we should be angry. But an out of control temper is another matter.
A temper that heats up quickly and reaches the flash point easily almost always results in hastily spoken words that are hurtful, words you most likely didn’t truly mean, but in that moment of bad temper, they spilled out. How can you learn to control that temper?
First, pray about it regularly, admitting it as a sin to God and asking for His Spirit to help you control it. In James 1:19-20 we read: But let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Galatians 5:19-20 lists outbursts of angeras one of the deeds of the flesh. There is no doubt that the person who rushes into anger, expresses it freely and emotionally, and exhibits a hot temper has not yet learned how to control that emotion under pressure.
I recommend you memorize some relevant verses and when you feel the anger start to rise, remove yourself from the situation if possible, quote those verses to yourself, and pray that you’ll keep your mouth shut. Learning to not say anything in the heat of the moment is really the key to controlling your temper. You’ll be so glad you don’t have to regret those words and try to make amends later. It is a sign of maturity as a believer and as a person to control your temper when you’re under pressure, and God is able to accomplish that in you to His glory.
Do you know how to manage your emotions under pressure? This is a self-discipline that is vital to your ability to succeed, especially in the workplace where you are dealing with all kinds of people.
Here’s another question: How much emotional energy do you waste by overreacting? Quite frankly, this is a hot button for me. I can easily overreact, and believe me, you always live to regret it.
Years ago God begin to teach me to respond rather than react. Responding requires discipline and self control. First, you have to be aware of the fact that you have a tendency to overreact, and then you must have an alternate strategy to tell you how to respond, so that you aren't reacting.
Don't be surprised to discover that sometimes those first involuntary reactions are not what they should be. In other words, the inappropriate reaction just happens, involuntarily before we can stop it. The problem begins when we allow those reactions to control our behavior; when we haven't learned enough self-discipline to be able to wait through the reaction and then decide how best to respond.
This is important: You can’t learn how to respond on the spur of the moment; it has to be built into your character and into your mind. The more you get into God's Word, the more you spend time with the Lord each day in fellowship and prayer, the more prepared you will be to respond. You have to build those spiritual muscles so they’ll be there when you need them.
Here are some verses that remind us of the need to respond rather than react:
He who answers before listening - that is his folly and his shame. (Proverbs 18:13)
Here are some other verses along those lines:
Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him. (Proverbs 29:20)
A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult. (Proverbs 12:16)
Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always be kind to each other and to everyone else.
(1 Thessalonians 5:15)
If overreacting is an emotion that plagues you, as it does me, I want to encourage you to know that God can give you the grace to be an over-comer and learn to get beyond your reaction to a place where you can respond in the right way. And as you learn to do that, you will discover that not only does it greatly improve your relationships, but it reduces your own stress because you don’t have to live with the regrets of the things you said or did in react mode.
How far could you go in your career if you eliminated one or two counter-productive behaviors? That’s a soul-searching question, isn’t it? You know, it’s not easy for us to be objective about ourselves, but in the end, it is the smartest and most painless way we have of making changes that will benefit us and improve our relationships.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians that, if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment (1 Corinthians 11:31). We truly can spare ourselves immense pain and shame by judging ourselves before others do it. So, back to our question: How far could you go in your career if you eliminated one or two counter-productive behaviors?
Here are some common counter-productive behaviors:
-
Failure to follow-through on promises and commitments
-
Tendency to be late to work, meetings, appointments
-
Missing deadlines frequently
-
Shifting the blame to others
-
Talking about people behind their backs
-
Bashing the boss with coworkers
-
Complaining and griping alot
Recently Jean, a listener, wrote: “After hearing today’s message, I was hit with a great thought: Every time I ‘make a dig’ about somebody else or complain about another person, I’m going to stop and reflect on one of my own faults. Wow, I can’t wait to see if this helps me in this area. Thanks for the inspiration.”
This is a great example of a woman who recognizes the need to eliminate a counter-productive behavior–gossiping and complaining–and she has a plan to make it happen. By praying about this and setting her mind to eliminate this sinful habit, she will not only be more Christ-like and pleasing to the Lord, but she will also enhance her own value to her employer and that can only result in good things happening to her.
I want to encourage you to identify just one counter-productive behavior of your own and make a commitment, through prayer, to change that behavior. Like my friend, Jean, decide exactly what you will do to replace a bad habit with a good one, and pray it into your life. The good news is, as born-again believers, we have a power beyond ourselves that makes it possible for us to truly change, and that is the Spirit of God within us. We really don’t have an excuse for staying in bondage to counter-productive behavior, do we?
I wonder if you’ve ever thought about how much time and energy you spend feeling hurt and how that affects your performance and your ability to succeed.
If it were possible to measure how much productivity is lost, how many hours are wasted, how many jobs are half-done or not done because somebody got their feelings hurt, I think we would be shocked. I see it happen so often–in others as well as myself–and I’ve finally come to the place where I’m really fed up with overly sensitive hurt feelings. Now, obviously sometimes our feelings are hurt legitimately; I understand that. But my guess is that’s about twenty-five percent of the time. The majority of our hurt feelings come from being way too sensitive and offended far too easily.
As you examine this emotion of getting your feelings hurt easily, you have to recognize that it is a result of thinking that everything is all about you! If someone forgets to say good morning to me as they walk by and I choose to let that hurt my feelings, it’s because I think they’re purposely slighting me and trying to hurt me. I’m thinking it’s all about me, instead of stopping to realize they’re probably just in a rush, thoughtless no doubt, but intending no negative message to me whatsoever.
As I’ve often said, people are not thinking about you nearly as much as you think they are! They’re thinking about themselves. I urge you to examine yourself and determine if you are a victim of your own overly-sensitive feelings. If so, one of the best gifts you can give yourself is to overcome this tendency. I truly believe we are often a victim of ourselves–our own worst enemy.
Start making allowances for others. If someone speaks in a tone that sounds harsh, tell yourself that they don’t realize it, or something else has upset them that has nothing to do with you. Unless you have firm proof that it has something to do with you, assume that it does not. It’s not all about you. Even if the other person’s behavior verges on being rude, just let them off the hook. Imagine an excuse.
I read a prayer once which I’ve written in my prayer journal which says, “May I be willing to make the same excuses for other people that I make for myself.” Isn’t that a great prayer? After all, we let ourselves off the hook all the time. We say or think, I’m tired, or I’m in a rush, or I didn’t mean to sound harsh, or They misunderstood what I meant. We make excuses for ourselves, but frequently we aren’t willing to make the same excuses for others. Pray that God will help you to make excuses for others, and in the process, learn to manage your tendency to get your feelings hurt too easily.
Most of us already know how we should act in certain situations. We should be cool in a crisis, positive when things go wrong, keep our voices calm when things get heated up, not allow our temper to get out of control. We know these things, but we just don’t always do what we know.
Jesus once said, Now that you know these things, you are blessed if you do them (John 13:17). The blessing comes when we do what we know we should do. The major difference between most people and extremely successful people is the gap between what they know and what they do. Most of us have about the same knowledge base. But people who are successful, both spiritually and in every other way, are those who are better at doing what they should be doing. It really is just that simple.
And none of us who know Jesus as our Savior has an excuse for not doing what we should do. We all have the same power available to us–the power of God’s Holy Spirit living within us. So, we have this great advantage over those who don’t know Jesus, because He gives us not only the desire to want to do the right thing, but the power through His Spirit to make it happen.
However, like all power sources, we have to be plugged in and turn it on. And that’s possible only through prayer, filling our minds with the truth of God’s Word, staying in close fellowship with the Lord, and building the right kind of accountability into our lives.
Emotions are gifts from God and they are given to us for good purposes. But when they are out of control, they can be very destructive. Pressurized situations can drive our emotions to the edge, but we have the power, through Christ, to keep them from going over those edges.
As you go into your work-world each day–whether it’s in an office, a hospital, a school, a bus, a factory, your own home, wherever–you have an opportunity to be the living word of God to those around you. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that they were, a letter from Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts (2 Corinthians 3:3). They will “read” your letter from Christ as they see you, in pressurized situations, responding in Christ-like ways, with patience and love and kindness and wisdom. That’s how we truly let our lights shine before people, so they can see our good works, and then glorify our Father in heaven.
