Over the last few weeks we’ve been focussing on Emotional Intelligence and how it relates to your business. In today’s post, we are going to continue with that theme and focus on self-regulation.
What is self-regulation anyway?
Well, according to the website Very Well Mind, they believe self-regulation can be defined in various ways. In the most basic sense, it involves controlling one’s behavior, emotions, and thoughts in the pursuit of long-term goals. More specifically, emotional self–regulation refers to the ability to manage disruptive emotions and impulses.
You can guess why this is an important aspect for those in leadership roles (or aspiring leaders) should be very aware of. Leaders who regulate themselves effectively rarely verbally attack others, make rushed or emotional decisions, stereotype people, or compromise their values.
Self-regulation is all about staying in control.
Before we give you some great tips in how to learn and manage self-regulation in your business, let’s touch briefly on why this is especially true in your home business. See, running a home business is an emotional roller coaster of highs and lows, twists and turns, and often those handle gripping loop-dee-loops.
Without good self-regulation, it’s probable you’ll be a hot mess.
The reality is, many people who are not successful in a home based business have difficulty managing their negative emotions. They take failure and use it to justify quitting. Is this something you can relate to? Or, remind you of someone you’ve worked with?
Your emotions will play a big part in your home business because they will impact how you:
- Feel about your business. See, when you’re having success, you’ll feel good, right? But when you experience failure, disappointment, and frustration, you’ll likely feel unmotivated and perhaps think about quitting.
- Behave. If you feel down, it’s difficult to work, which can impact your productivity.
- Treat others. Feelings of frustration or anger can b eprojected onto others, even if they’re not involved.
So, for those of you in the home business industry (network marketing or otherwise) self-regulation is among the top areas of emotional intelligence we would encourage you to focus on.
3 Ways to Improve Self-Regulation in business
- Know your Values – Do you have a clear idea of where you have zero room for compromise? Do you know what values are most important to you? Spend some time determining (in writing) your morals, values or code of ethics. If you know what’s most important to you, then you probably won’t have to think twice when you face a moral or ethical decision – you’ll make the right choice for you. This helps eliminate grey areas or impulsive decision making.
- Hold yourself Accountable – If you are known to blame others when something goes wrong, please — stop. Make a commitment to admit your mistakes and face the consequences, whatever they may be. You’ll probably sleep better at night, and you’ll quickly earn the respect of those around you. And, giving yourself a pat on the back never hurts either.
- Practice being Calm – The next time you’re in a challenging situation, be very aware of how you act. How do you relieve your stress in that moment? Does it involve yelling at someone? Pointing fingers? Acting what could be perceived as irrationally? Try to practice deep-breathing exercises to calm yourself down instead. Also, try to write down all of the negative things you want to say, and then rip it up and throw it away. Expressing these emotions on paper (and not showing them to anyone!) is better than speaking them to your team.
An activity that we do and have done with our teams in past, is having everyone right down negative thoughts, words, etc. and throwing them into a fire. This is a great team building activity and, lends well to working with your team on self-regulation too!
Where do you fall into the self-regulation scope of things?
In this an area that you pretty much have nailed or, one you should spend some more time working on?
