Know your emotional response triggers to help manage conflict

📌 Tip:

Know your emotional response triggers to help manage conflict

🧠 Why? 

Your emotions can turn a conversation into a conflict very quickly.

One way to manage this is to know what triggers your emotional response.

For some people it is having a family member pulled into a conversation, for others it can come as a result of someone with a different opinion than your own.

Once you know your triggers - develop a series of tactics to prevent your emotional response from getting out of control so you can avoid a potentially heated conflict.

🛠️ How I do it: 

One of my emotional triggers is when someone critiques my work. Despite my best efforts, I often take it as a critique of me as an individual rather than it being likely just about the work.

How I manage my inevitable emotional response is to keep my mouth closed, clench my teeth, put on a partial smile, and then simply nod my head as my counterpart is sharing their critique with me. 

Once they are done. I say "Thank you for your input, I appreciate your perspective" and head out of view where I either practice 4x4 box breathing or go for a brisk walk to "shake it off".

Good-luck!