With “agile” being the buzzword in most tech startups and enterprises, I’ve learnt that besides your processes, your emotions can and should be agile as well. I’ve recently come across the term “emotionally agile” which I feel is life-changing but which most people seem to never have heard of.
The book Emotional Agility by Susan David revolves around helping people take charge of their emotions and mindfully live their lives.
Emotionally agile people understand that life isn’t always easy, but they “continue to act according to their most cherished values and pursue their big, long-term goals.”
Here, I’ll summarise 3 of my most important personal takeaways from the book (aka spoilers ahead!)
The narratives in your head. Change them.
Everyone makes up their own narratives in their heads. In fact, people love stories. So much so that we make some of them up. “I think my colleague doesn’t like me. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks.” And most of the time, these narratives spiral deeper into negativity. “My colleague must really hate me. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks. Maybe I shouldn’t try to talk to him anymore.”
This is called “Thought Blaming”, a term coined in Emotional Agility where the speaker blames his/her thoughts for his/her actions — or inactions. Being emotionally agile means to accept these narratives and acknowledge it with kindness and compassion. And then learning to unhook them before they become self fulfilling prophecies.
Sometimes all it takes is for you to change these narratives in your head (well, you are your own author of your stories).
One example is — the next time you experience one of the negative hooks — “I’ve made a mistake at work, my colleagues must find me a burden” or “ everyone in this meeting is so experienced, I am too young and inexperienced to be speaking up in this meeting”, change your narrative to “It’s ok making mistakes, I could simply share my mistake so everyone could learn” or “I think I may be able to provide a fresh perspective to this meeting” and you just may be able to do so.
Do you have “Dead people goals”?
“Only dead people never get unwanted or inconvenienced by their feelings. Only dead people never get stressed, never get broken hearts, never experience the disappointment that comes with failure. Tough emotions are part of our contract with life.”
How aptly put.
It is perfectly ok to have negative emotions. If anyone has watched Inside Out by Disney Pixar, this point probably wouldn’t require much explanation.
Acknowledge your thoughts or feelings and step out of them. In the book, stepping out means to separate your thoughts and feelings from yourself, in order to see that they are just emotions which do not define you.
Being in a field which is largely male dominated, I’ve my own fair share of doubts and insecurities and of course, experienced the infamous “imposter syndrome”.
Taking an example from a typical technical discussion, whenever I have an opinion, there’s always an internal debate on whether to voice it out (probably surfaced from fear of rejection).
But I’ve learnt it is ok to experience tough emotions. One, most of the time, people do have the same question in their heads as well and two, from experience, it does get easier to acknowledge your fears with kindness and compassion the more times you do it.
(But yes it’s way easier said than done though)
“Walking your way”
Walking your way means to make choices which you fully own independent of emotional hooks. Ideally, it means that you should live your life based on your own core values and purpose.
“Your risk of becoming obese increases with each obese person you come into contact with.”
Though controversial, there lies some truth in that statement. It is very easy to be influenced by the majority and to simply “go with the flow”. Ultimately, it is about identifying your beliefs and sticking through it.
In the book, she also mentions something called “screw you money” — which is literally the name suggests — money needed to tide you over a “screw you” moment to your boss or a relationship that just isn’t working out. By saving up a “screw you” fund, you can do things out of your own will as opposed to being forced by circumstances, and thus living up to really “walking your way”.
The 3 points I’ve touched on is simply the tip of the iceberg. I would definitely recommend the book Emotional Agility by Susan David to everyone. Go read the book for more insights and thank me later. Also do contact me at hello@imstacy.com or drop me a message at my website.
Thanks for reading…
