Self-awareness! Your key to surviving work challenges [HBR.org]

Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project and author of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, talks in his article about how our self-worth and our value (the degree to which we feel valued by others) influences our behavior and effectiveness at work.

We all experience challenges to our value at work every day — demanding and critical bosses, difficult clients and customers, tough assignments, tight deadlines, failure to achieve our goals, or the feeling that we’re being excluded, singled out, overlooked, or not fully appreciated.
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Think of each of these as a trigger: an event, a behavior, or a circumstance that prompts negative emotions — and more specifically, the experience of fight or flight.

It’s a reverse value proposition: the more we feel threatened, the more energy we spend defending, restoring, and asserting our value, and the less energy we have available to create value.
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Just think about the difference between hearing a compliment and a criticism. Which are you more inclined to believe? What do you dwell on longer?

The researcher John Gottman has found that among married couples, it takes at least five positive comments to offset one negative one.
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The first move when you’ve been triggered is the simplest: take a deep breath and exhale slowly. So long as your body is flooded with stress hormones, you literally can’t think straight, so it’s best not to react at all.

At The Energy Project, we call this the Golden Rule of Triggers: Whatever you feel compelled to do, don’t.

As soon as you’re calm enough, ask yourself, “How am I feeling my value is at risk here?” You’ll make a fascinating discovery. It’s not what the other person said that triggered you; it’s how you interpreted it.

The less you can make it about your value, the more control you’ll have over how you respond.

Read the full article at: Harvard Business Review