How to Break the Emotional Habits That Interfere With Your Dreams
The rumination. The complaining. The endless worrying over others’ opinions.
It all has a cost—because it interferes with the big things we want to do in life.
“That loop we keep playing in our head about what we could have said, or what we beat ourselves up over—it is just us clobbering ourselves,” says Neal Schore, a business advisor and executive coach.
Too many of us remain at the mercy of our emotional reactions and patterns, he continues.
But here’s the good news: We can change this. We can show ourselves mercy by managing our emotions and reallocating that time and energy to what matters—be it more efficiency at work, more time with loved ones, more energy to put toward that dream (writing that book!), or whatever pulls at your heart.
So how do you get out of your own way? Schore offers a fresh perspective for becoming more self-aware, and two tips from his new book, The 25th Hour, to get you started.
First things first: know you’re human.
Letting our inner emotional world get the best of us—again, that ruminating or endless “clobbering,” as Schore says—are human tendencies. They see no age, title, or background. Schore’s coaching clients range from young professionals in their early 20s to C-suite executives in their late 60s and 70s.
“I just had a client, a [mid-50s] female CEO who runs a very notable company, who was swirling about something a board member said,” says Schore. “She wound up going to three employees looking for what appeared to be feedback, but it was really pacifying. It’s commiseration described as collaboration, and it winds up feeding and fueling that swirling beast.”
So again, we’re all susceptible—and we can all break free.
Consider the costs.
Our emotional reactions are not merely emotional reactions. Oftentimes, they’re time and energy zombies, interfering with our peace, enjoyment, efficiency, and goals. (Heck, interfering with our lives!)
While time and energy are the more obvious victims, Schore says there’s also a less measurable cost: distraction. That attention put toward ruminating, or “swirling” as Schore says, is time taken from more important things.
Schore says he’s been guilty of receiving a work text during dinner and suddenly becoming consumed by it. “More times than I care to admit, I would excuse myself to the restroom so that I could address it and quickly engage in something that had little actual importance, but was causing me to swirl,” he says. “That distraction is massive sums of time. And how we then play that forward is what I refer to as negative contagion: when we then loop other people in and suck them into our vortex of distraction and negativity, then that sucks them of time and creates even more distraction.”
To break free, use the “What’s the Intent?” tool.
Many of us (if not all of us) have gotten frustrated with people, be it coworkers or family members, and that may lead to us feeling agitated or resentful—giant time and energy sucks. If that happens, consider a coaching tool Schore created called “What’s the Intent?”
Here’s how it works: If someone says something or approaches you with a question, pause and consider the deeper reason behind it. Ask yourself, Why is this person telling or asking me this? What’s their intent? “Oftentimes, there is some other measure” at play, says Schore.
He gives the example of a boss and a young professional. The young professional enters their boss's office and asks a bunch of questions. The boss then spends 20 unplanned minutes explaining things, and when it’s over, is left frustrated over how they’re going to catch up. Instead of this playing out, perhaps the boss could pause at the beginning and ask themself, What’s the intent? Why is this young person really in my office? As Schore argues, they may see that maybe the young professional was seeking some face time or mentorship. Maybe it wasn’t about the questions but about feeling seen at work. In this case, the boss could have given the employee some feedback or validation and saved loads of time.
Schore posits that when we stop to consider others’ intentions, we step outside our emotional reactions—reactions that bog us down!—and instead redirect our attention outward to understand others better. This saves us time and energy, can help to nip ruminating in the bud, and helps us better connect.
Do things differently.
When asked what his one favorite tool for helping people get out of their own way is, Schore recoiled. “I'm cautious not ever to suggest that there's like one easy answer,” he says, laughing. But he admits this one benefits us all: Do things differently.
“We have to get really comfortable being uncomfortable,” he continued. “We have to reprogram what I refer to as our robots.”
When we are doing even the most mundane tasks, consider mixing it up and breaking the sequence. Enter: the pant leg challenge. Let’s say when you put on your pants, you go right leg, then left leg. Challenge yourself to do it the other way. Put on your pants by putting your left leg in first, then your right leg. You may have to stop, take out your right leg, and re-do it. That’s all okay, says Schore. “For as absolutely ridiculous as this sounds, and I acknowledge it is, it's also playful, and it's fun. And it's hard!”
The magic here is that this silly-seeming, zero-consequences exercise helps us break out of emotional habits and change our behaviors. “No one is measuring what pant leg you put in, but when you do that, you start to build the muscle that goes around things like in-office patterns, and the way you lead,” says Schore. It also helps you to see how some things you’ve been doing, such as unproductive meetings or complaining, could benefit from a fresh spin on things.
Ultimately, doing things differently helps to get you out of your head and into action toward what’s truly worth your time and energy—and that is all the big things you want to do in your one cherished life.
Neal Schore is the co-founder and CEO of The 25th Hour Group, an executive coaching and leadership events firm. Find more tips in his new book below and learn more about Schore at 25thhourgroup.com
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