Emotional agility includes your overall sense of positivity in your life as well as your capacity to choose and manage appropriate emotions in both positive and challenging situations.
It is closely related (but different) to Emotional Intelligence (which I will be covering in a future post).
If you’re in a sales role or a sales leadership role, you’ll know only too well that every day working with prospective and existing clients comes with both good and not so good days.
This is where your emotional agility can impact your sales success.
Emotional Agility is not just about positive thinking or looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses. The reality is, life isn’t easy, and there are difficult times we all experience.
It’s also not about hiding your emotions … it’s more about your intentional choice of how you behave … your words and your actions.
So … let me ask you this question:
How agile are you with adjusting your emotions and actions to appropriately suit whatever situation life presents to you?
Key point
The key here is to be aware of whether your emotions are driving your actions, or whether you are in fact intentionally choosing your actions … regardless of the emotions you are feeling.
Intentionally expressing appropriate emotions through appropriate actions in any given situation, especially difficult situations, isn’t always easy.
Now, the next sentence you are going to read is one of the most important pieces of wisdom I have learned to date:
You are not your thoughts, and you are not your emotions, and regardless of your thoughts or your emotions, you can intentionally choose to take positive goal-supportive action guided by your values – regardless of what you think or how you feel.
This is why I’m continually harping on about the importance for you to be clear about your personal values.
Without clarity of values, you are missing what we know from vast evidence-based research, is one of the most helpful decision making tools available to us as humans.
When you are clear about your personal values you can ask yourself this question in difficult situations:
With this decision I’m about to make or this action I’m about to take (regardless of what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling) … will I be living up to my personal values and demonstrating to myself and others of my continual striving to be the best version of myself?
In sales and service roles, your clients are basing their decision to buy from you on your emotions and actions and their assumptions about your intentions.
Activity
Here’s what might seem to be a silly activity, however, I urge you to try it out.
To prove to yourself that regardless of your thoughts or feelings you can take positive goal-supportive action guided by your values, tell yourself you are not going to do something (for example, “I’m not going to go for a walk” or “I can’t do five more push-ups” or “I’m not going to just sit and breathe silently to myself for one minute” or “I’m not going to do any of these things” … and do them anyway.
If you attempt any of the above, and actually do what you tell yourself you can’t or won’t, you have proven you are not your thoughts or feelings, and that you can choose goal-supportive action guided by your values, regardless of what you think or feel.
25 Contributing Elements to Living a Good Life
This topic of Emotional Agility is just one of 25 contributing elements to living a good life that I write about in my book LIVING in the Light of Day.
If you haven’t got your copy yet (in hardcover, paperback, kindle/ebook or audiobook versions), you can Buy It Here.
