Personal experience on emotional management

Emotional management is never about eliminating negative emotions, nor is it about relying on willpower. It is about finding an "emotional pathway" that suits your personality and the current scene. Let the emotions flow naturally without causing internal friction, which is the best state.

When I first switched to project management in 2021, I was brainwashed by the online message "Workers must be emotionally stable" every day. When I encountered temporary changes in requirements, cross-team blame-shifting, and unprovoked complaints from customers, I had to put on a standard professional smile on my face. As a result, I had insomnia every day during that period. I postponed it for half a month. I was riding a shared bicycle after work to avoid a manhole cover. I sprained my ankle and suddenly collapsed while sitting on the roadside. It was only when tears hit my trouser legs that I realized: the more you block your emotions, the more they wreak havoc in places you can’t see. It’s not something you can just endure.

Later, I talked to a friend who was doing psychological counseling, and I discovered that the popular emotion management methods on the market are not standard answers at all. The logic of different schools is far different, and the suitable groups are completely different. For example, the most classic cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the core logic is "Emotions are not caused by the event itself, but by your interpretation of the event." I have tried to write down all the things that make me unhappy in a memo, and list three different interpretations of the same thing, such as "The leader did not reply to my weekly report", the first one is "He is not satisfied with my work", The second is "He is in a high-level meeting and has no time to watch." The third is "He simply forgot about this." Thinking about it from another angle, the anxiety can indeed be eliminated by most, but this method is not a panacea. I have a highly sensitive friend next to me, but when I use this method, I always blame myself for "thinking about the worst again", which adds a layer of internal friction of "I can't control my thoughts."

I later tried the mindfulness method, which has been very popular in the past two years. The core is not to judge the emotion, but to be aware of its physiological response. When I am angry, I will feel my temples twitching and my palms clenching so much that it hurts. I don’t need to scold myself, “Why can’t I hold my breath?” I just watch the emotion come up like a bystander and wait for it to go away on its own. The last time my mother called me to urge me to get married, I was about to talk back, but suddenly I felt my face was getting horribly hot, so I just said, "I'm a little anxious right now, so I'll go back to my room and wait for ten minutes." There was no quarrel that time. This method has a great impact on daily conflicts in intimate relationships. Confrontation is indeed useful, but it is completely inapplicable when it comes to emergency situations in the workplace. The last time a client told me in front of the whole team that the solution I made was rubbish. I couldn't say, "Wait until I notice my emotions for three minutes before I talk to you." I had to suppress my emotions on the spot to solve the problem.

There is also a very controversial expression school, which believes that emotions should be completely vented and should not be held back, such as going to boxing, shouting on the top of a mountain, or finding a friend to vomit. When I was squeezed out of a project evaluation by a related party last time, I invited a friend to eat skewers and cursed for two hours while eating. I woke up refreshed the next day and nothing happened. However, this method also has clear pitfalls: My former colleague had a conflict with the boss last time. He became more and more angry when he complained and sent a resignation application on the spot. The next day, he regretted it. After all, he had not found a new job yet. If he did not have the right to express himself, it would be easy to make a decision that he would regret.

Now I don't worry about which method is "correct" at all. It all depends on the current scene. When you encounter unreasonable customers at work, use CBT to change your interpretation. Anyway, the most important thing is to work and make money. If you don’t make mistakes, you can’t live with money. ； If you feel uncomfortable on the way to get off work, take a slow walk for two stops, feel the wind blowing against your ears, and use mindfulness to relieve the tension from work. ； If you are really wronged, just invite your friends out to have a good scolding. After the scolding, go buy a cake that you have wanted to eat for a long time, and there will be no internal friction.

I had dinner with the technical director of our company a while ago. He said that outsiders thought that he was very emotionally stable and would not panic even if the sky fell. In fact, the last time the core server crashed, he threw two bottles of mineral water in the computer room. After throwing it, he wiped his hands and squatted on the ground to repair. It was much more efficient than when he held it in. There is no natural emotional stability, it's just that people know how to let their emotions go without affecting others.

Harmful, let's talk about it, emotions are like garbage in your kitchen. You can't always save them. If you save too much, it will stink and attract insects.； You can't just dump it at other people's doorsteps, that would be disrespectful. ； Not to mention not skipping meals just to avoid producing garbage. There is no need to force yourself to be an "emotionless adult", just find a way to throw away garbage that suits you. My experience in the past three years can be summed up in one sentence: Don’t fight against your emotions. Just take it when it comes and let it go as you feel comfortable. That’s better than anything else.