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By Dr. Daneen Skube
Tribune Content Agency
Interpersonal Edge
Q: Lately I’m constantly irritated at people and things. I love my work, but recently I’m daydreaming about retirement. Is there any way to work with my anger so I don’t just walk out because I’ve had it with people?
A: Yes, anger is a vastly unappreciated emotion that can be used in service of effective change. If you stop judging your fury as a character flaw, it will teach you what you need to change about how you’re operating.
When we’ve had it with people, we generally have had it not with people, but with the agreements we’ve made with people. We have allowed people to treat us poorly and still get what they want from us. Why would anyone around us change if what they’re doing is getting results?
New clients don’t like the idea that they have allowed poor treatment, but as the saying goes, he or she that is walked on must first lie down. The trick with using your fury is you have to first identify how you have continued to allow the behavior you now can’t stand.
As we get older, we get bolder and much less willing to put up with nonsense. My older clients tell me they are “old and cranky.” I tell these clients that they are wise and are developing better boundaries.
Boundaries between you and anyone else help you take care of your needs. You’ll feel more and more furious if you give people the room to walk on you because you don’t negotiate.
The solution is not to rant at anyone. More abuse in the world isn’t a solution. It’s just more abuse in the world. A solution cannot perpetuate the problem it tries to solve.
The solution is to become sensitive to your body when it is saying “no,” and when your people pleasing side is saying “yes, yes!” Your body literally can save you from making poor decisions, if you listen to it. When you’re considering a request and get a stomach ache, backache, or headache, your body is trying to save you from yourself.
If in doubt, allow yourself to under-promise and over-deliver. People are always happy to have you help later if you initially turned them down.
Once you see that anger is an emotion giving you critical data about a change you need to make, your fury becomes a friend, not a foe. Especially if our role in our family of origin was the “helper,” we may have a bad habit of over functioning for others. You’ll have to make your bad habit conscious before you can stop it, and anger can help you.
I know at this point, you may think beating an annoyed hasty retreat sounds like a solution. However, even if you do retire, your bad habit of poor boundaries will follow you home. Your office situation is actually giving you a fantastic opportunity to stop giving more than you can afford to give.
Think of it this way, we all have an emotional bank account where we can write checks as long as there is money in our account. When we write checks that our heart simply cannot cash, we become overdrawn physically, intellectually, and emotionally and rage is the result.
You can make a new start this Monday by going into your office and only writing the checks you can afford. You’ll discover this metaphor will allow you to invest wisely in the people and situations you care about, and just say “no” to situations at work that ask more than you have to give.
The last word(s)
Q: I’ve made some poor decisions and am down in the dumps about my career. Do you have advice on how to dig yourself out of mistakes?
A: Yes, as Mark Twain (1835-1910), the famed American author, quipped: “Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.” Use your experience to improve your situation!
Daneen Skube, Ph.D., executive coach, trainer, therapist and speaker, also appears as the FOX Channel’s “Workplace Guru” each Monday morning. She’s the author of “Interpersonal Edge: Breakthrough Tools for Talking to Anyone, Anywhere, About Anything” (Hay House, 2006). You can contact Dr. Skube at www.interpersonaledge.com or 1420 NW Gilman Blvd., #2845, Issaquah, WA 98027. Sorry, no personal replies.
©2024 Interpersonal Edge. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
