By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Frustration is a real part of the workplace.
Day to day work can get under our skin.
There are times we just want to explode and bottle our anger up.
That’s a good thing . . . Up to a point.
The problem is that often, we bottle anger up, it sits there like a tea kettle on a low boil ready to explode.
I remember many years ago when I was dating someone. I loved her very much and one day exploded over things that have nothing to do with her.
My anger had more to do with my work and with little things in a relationship that came together in an incendiary device that exploded and poisoned the relationship. 100% my fault. I didn’t know how to deal with anger then. I kept bottled up until I couldn’t.
Professionally, I’ve done much the same thing, holding in my anger until I couldn’t rather than dealing with it in the moment.
My friend, David, has a wonderful strategy.
“Just count to one,” he says. “You’ll never get to three.”
I’ve tried it. It works!
Nobody can make this change for you but you. It’s why I often ask people who I coach, “what’s possible now,” because it focuses people on the immediate moment, instead of doing Monday morning quarterbacking (reviewing what they should have done, instead of looking ahead given what they’ve done).
You can’t start a new chapter if you keep re-reading the old one.
It is what it is.
Ⓒ The Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC 2020, 2021
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a career and leadership coach who worked as a recruiter for more than 40 years. He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with more than 2200 episodes. He also hosts Job Search TV on YouTube, Amazon and Roku, as well as on BingeNetworks.tv for Apple TV and 90+ smartsets.
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