4 Steps to Avoid Emotional Triggers When Growing Your Business
In business, things don’t always go according to plan. As an entrepreneur, the way you handle the unexpected—when a project falls through, when someone makes a mistake, or when your system has a breakdown—plays a huge role in how successful you’ll be.
If you become scattered, flustered, stressed, and frustrated, your energy changes, and you hamper your own success.
But when you’re able to release any emotional triggers and course correct with calm and confidence, your business grows quickly and efficiently.
Below, we’ll cover some scenarios where a breakdown occurs, along with some common, low-vibration reactions. Then, we’ll share some tips for keeping your cool even when things heat up.
Breakdown Scenarios
Breakdowns happen all the time. They happen in family life—when each spouse thinks the other spouse is picking up dinner and they both arrive home, empty-handed, or when someone forgets to switch over the laundry.
And they happen in business:
- All the links in an email you just sent out are broken.
- Your email program glitches and sends out a four-year-old email.
- The guest speaker you have lined up for your event gets sick and is forced to back out.
- You have a ton to do, and one of your employees wants to have a conversation … and you don’t feel like you have time.
Emotionally Triggered Reactions
When breakdowns happen, the worst thing you can do is to react emotionally. Why? Because doing so takes you out of alignment with your vision.
It takes your focus off where it needs to be, which is on how to keep your company moving forward so you can keep hitting your goals.
Emotional triggers can be slippery and difficult to identify. You may not even realize your reactions are emotionally triggered, because you may not recognize the feelings you’re having.
If you experience anger, frustration, overwhelm, or lack of clarity, then chances are you’re having an emotional reaction.
An emotional reaction may manifest as one of the following:
- You yelling at an employee who made a mistake.
- You shutting everyone else out, feeling like your work is more important than their questions or the conversations they want to have.
- You feeling flustered or scattered or uncertain of what to do.
- You feeling like a powerless victim.
- Everyone is irritating you.
- You’re “so busy” you don’t have space in your life for the things you say you want to do (like take a vacation or spend time with your family).
The good news is that if you’re recognizing some of these behaviors in yourself, you can turn things around. You can learn to react to the unexpected without emotion, which empowers you to stay aligned with your vision.
