Speak First Newsletter - March 2006

Managing Emotional States

How often has your state of mind affected how you go about your day?  Do you actually manage your emotional state just before you go into a meeting, pick up the phone or do a presentation?  Or do you just hope you can somehow keep any negative feelings at bay and get by? How do you get rid of the blues?

There is something addictive about staying in a particular state.  Although we can change states many times a day, if we succumb to a particularly negative one, be it anger, fear, insecurity, frustration or any other negative emotion, the strength of it can mean that it’s hard to get out of it.  Sometimes this emotion is connected to a specific context like presenting publicly or communicating with a particular person.  At other times it can pervade the day.  We feel we got out of bed on the wrong side and look for everything which might support our negative view. If we happen to have an important task to do, we can’t afford to let negative states affect how we come across.  People pick up the cues – you can win or lose pitches on this.  Indeed in any communication, if your words don’t match your actions you won’t bring others along with you when speaking to them.  As a manager, director, salesperson, trainer, coach or just plain individual, we owe it to ourselves to come across the best way we can.

Click here to learn about how you create your own states and how these affect your physiology and the impact you have on others.  Do the exercises and change your state if it’s not helping you to achieve your best.  The hints come from a chapter in a recent book, Teach Yourself NLP, by Amanda Vickers’, one of our Directors and Steve Bavister, one of our associates.