By Penny Myerscough -
Learning to take a few minutes to reset your emotional state can help you keep calm at work and at home.
Is your diary filled with back-to-back meetings for weeks on end? Are you making phone calls or checking emails every minute of your evening commute, rushing to get home for a few minutes with the kids before they go to bed?
When you are moving non-stop from one meeting to the next, you can easily carry any tensions, frustrations or negative emotions from one interaction to the next. By late afternoon, you are distracted and irritable; by the time you get home, you aren’t the parent or partner you want to be – instead, you are frustrated and preoccupied with work.
What if you could create a small time buffer between meetings? What if this time gave you the chance to recalibrate, take stock and (here’s the interesting bit) choose who you want to be at your next meeting or interaction with colleagues, family or friends?
Creating a buffer is a simple aspect of mindfulness that can help you manage a busy work life. It’s as easy as taking a few breaths and deciding who you want to be next. When done well, it allows you to contain negative emotions to the event that triggered them.
