How to be the impression we want to make in the world
by Colleen Gray

Have you ever found yourself wishing you were able to handle your emotions with control and confidence so that you could present a more confident and professional “you” to the world?

At the most crucial and challenging times in our lives, we find that the emotions we are experiencing can overwhelm us or undermine our efforts. Presenting a good impression under these circumstances is a way of being that doesn’t always come easily. Our traditional way of learning, with its focus on intellectual and practical abilities, doesn’t equip us to understand how to be effective in our emotional lives.

Yet our emotions play a vital role in determining how we go about achieving what we can and cannot achieve in our lives. To understand human action and how to succeed, we must pay serious attention to our emotional lives. Acknowledging the legitimacy of our emotions, allows us to refocus our energy in more holistic and useful ways and achieve in the areas of our work, learning, relationships, sociability and spirituality.

I often hear people who are facing challenging situations say, “I need to keep the emotions out of it”. By being emotionally neutral, they believe they will think more clearly and maintain a calm and rational stance.

Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a limited view which doesn’t take into account how meaning and connection are generated at the emotional level. Life is a series of experiences which afford us the opportunity to learn about emotions such as love, belonging, connection, happiness, satisfaction and confidence by experiencing those emotions, and our lives are dramatically influenced by each experience. We discover that we love, feel good about, are happy or confident through the experiences which produce these positive experiences and emotions.

If a person who is embarking on a public speaking engagement is fearful and anxious, then their emotional state will be focused inwardly and they are more likely to be concerned about and focus on what they will do wrong rather than how they will speak well.

On the other hand a person who is confident and excited by the opportunity will be more likely to focus their attention on emotionally connecting with the audience and delivering an interesting and enjoyable speech.

It is easy to see how the fearful experience will generate ongoing negative emotions, while the confident performance will create an emotional experience which is enjoyable and satisfying.

Over time, emotional experiences such as these form strong impressions and learnings that inform everything we do. There is a close connection between emotions and moods. What started as an emotion, linked to a particular event, over time can transform into a mood that hangs around in the background of our lives.

Some people live in moods of despair, depression and unhappiness, while others live in a mood of optimism and hope. The mood eventually permeates the person’s actions, influencing the way they live their lives and their attitude to everything that comes their way.

Given the power of our moods and emotions, we cannot simply eliminate them when we face a crisis or decision: they are part and parcel of our being. Yet at the same time, they are not uncontrollable or unchangeable, and mastering our emotions is not as difficult as it sounds.

If we understand that emotions are the by-products of our daily flow of life, produced most notably when we experience a change in that flow, we will be able to consciously recognise the emotion and decide whether it is the experience we want to be or live in. Through recognition, we are then able to modify our horizon of possibilities, be that in a positive or negative way.

A good starting point for clients who seek success is to have a conversation about their struggles and aspirations and to identify the emotions they are missing, what emotions they need to be in to move on and how they want to make changes.

Take Sue, for example. Sue had applied for a senior position in her organisation. She came to see me, expressing her concern that she wouldn’t perform well in the interview and would not create a good impression with the panel. Friends had encouraged her and given her a list of what she should do to win the position, but she was now feeling overwhelmed and afraid.

She was reassured to hear that feeling frightened and unsure of herself were normal emotional responses to the challenge she was facing. However, rather than staying stuck in the fear of failing the interview, she was encouraged to identify her specific concerns and find ways of moving forward. Through our discussion she identified that she was concerned about not being confident.

I asked her what emotion she would prefer to feel, and she replied, “More relaxed and confident about what I know”.

I helped her to explore what would be different for her when she became more confident and relaxed. She responded by relating how her body wouldn’t be so stiff, she would breathe more easily and be able to focus on what she needed to know. Emotionally, she would feel more settled. She demonstrated how she would sit confidently in the interview, and how she would do the necessary preparation that would help her to answer the questions. As she spoke, she experienced the shift in her emotions and immediately felt some relief.

Focusing on the emotions she would rather experience enabled her to clarify how she would prefer to be and how she would do it. Harnessing a positive emotional state changed the possibilities that were now open to her. For Sue, this was a significant emotional shift. The new emotional state provided a clearer lens through which she could view and now anticipate and plan her future actions.

It is common for people to assume that they cannot change the emotional state they are in. They often become resigned to being victims of their feelings and fears and resigned to the failures and negative experiences they live in. They can begin to believe that something is wrong with them.

However, when we learn how to acknowledge, confront and examine those emotions that keep us stuck, we are more likely to find ways to transform and generate different emotional experiences that are more helpful.

Honest conversation, with an emphasis on what needs to happen and how the changes will occur, is one of the easiest ways to achieve how we really want to live. Acknowledging and working with our emotions allows us to intervene and generate positive and useful emotions which provide a powerful framework for achieving change.

Understanding how to include emotions provides a powerful framework for achieving change. Rather than resisting and insisting people are empowered to access their emotional resources in a more useful and effective way.