Landing Instructions.

Controlling your perception

Which category do you fall under? In professional and private life, there seems to be two types of people: the yes-butters and the why-notters. Yes-butters are people who immediately look for the negative aspects of every situation. They immediately see the weak points in your project proposal, they lever out every new idea with killer phrases like “But that has never worked before!” and they will never try a new approach because they immediately see the most unlikely worst-case scenario that would prevent it from working.

Why-notters, on the other hand, are realistic optimists. They ask themselves first where a new idea or a new suggestion could be helpful. When it comes to new and innovative courses of action, they immediately see some promising improvements. Mind you, they are realistic through and through and are also capable of identifying possible hitches to an approach – but not until they reach the second step. You alone have the power to decide whether to focus on the negative aspects in a situation or to see things from a positive angle. In many situations you are powerless to change anything anyway – so why not just concentrate on the positive sides? In our case: a task is a task, regardless of whether it is assigned just before the weekend or at the beginning of the week. So don’t waste your energy getting angry and frustrated. Look for the positive aspects instead – even if the situation is unpleasant. Situations like that give you the opportunity to prove yourself and show that you can be depended on, even when it’s not a good time for you.

Changing how you interpret a perception

OK, you have to work at the weekend to get a draft finished by Monday. And yes, it could very well interfere with your plans to go hiking. But first off, your boss has never been strict about granting you comp time. You could take a day off to go hiking. After all, there are fewer excursionists in the mountains during the week. BUT did he take your advice and look for someone else to carry out this obviously important project? No, he chose you! Because you are the man or woman for the job! That is something you should be proud of.

Here, changing how you interpret the situation has also changed your feelings. You replaced your negative reaction with a more positive attitude, enabling yourself to influence how you feel about the situation. There can be very different reasons for everything that happens in the world. Use your imagination and look for neutral or even positive explanations. It is not about how much truth is contained in the explanations, but rather their protective function: the more bizarre and improbable the explanations, the more they protect you from getting stressed or angry or losing your temper. At the same time they can also activate your sense of humour. The goal is to keep a cool head and to be capable of constructive, reflective reactions – which is impossible if you only see red in a situation.

The principle behind this is that it doesn’t matter how you perceive a situation, it’s how you interpret your perception that is important, and you alone control that. You can mentally discipline yourself and quickly learn to reduce unnecessary negative interpretations and look at situations from a considerably more relaxed perspective. In situations in which negative elements are brought to bear, you can at least prevent yourself from spoiling your attitude for the rest of the day.

Embrace and accept your emotions

Negative emotions give rise to negative emotions: you get annoyed – and this annoys you even more because you know it’s a waste of time getting angry, nervous or impatient. Don’t punish yourself for your weaknesses, but build on your strengths in terms of your emotional skills!

Don’t stare at your negative feelings and judge yourself by them, but ask yourself what a feeling is trying to tell you and how you can constructively use its energy. Look deep within yourself, at what you’re feeling exactly, and describe the feeling (to yourself, write it down or talk about it with a person you trust) using neutral words. This observant perspective of describing your feelings can give you that bit of distance and takes the sceptre away from the emotion.

Get it straight in your mind: everyone has a right to every emotion! Of course you are allowed to get angry, frustrated or depressed – as long as this feeling doesn’t cause you to carry out impulsive, destructive actions like showing the pushy driver on the motorway who's really king of the road or finally telling your boss in no uncertain terms what you think of him.

Decoupling feelings and reactions

The goal is clear: separate your feeling from your reaction and take a constructive, or at least neutral, approach to the situation. You don’t like working over the weekend? You don’t have to like it! But an indignant, angry reaction won’t change anything. On the contrary, such reactions only put you on your boss' bad side, as your refusal will not make him very happy. A reaction like this is not only tactically unwise, but also foolish. Make the best of the situation instead and remind yourself of situations in which you managed to control yourself and react in a suitable manner. The following brakes will help you to keep the impulsiveness of your negative feelings in check and model your reaction to be more suitable: