It’s so important to keep your cool in difficult conversations.  

Think of it like walking on a balance beam – you need to stay balanced – as calm, cool, and collected as possible.  

Why not be too angry? It can potentially: 

• Destroy the relationship
• Not get the outcome you want
• Make the whole situation even worse

Why not be too positive? It sounds weird, but too happy or eager to end the conversation you could:

• Accidentally overlook red flags from the other person
• Skip crucial steps to building accountability and follow through.

So the key is to manage your emotions at all times.  And it starts with understanding your triggers – what sets you off.  

How do I figure out my triggers?

A simple exercise you can do to figure out your triggers is to keep a journal.  

For a couple weeks, just keep a journal of every time you get upset or angry.  Track what led up to it and what you felt (both emotionally and physically).    

Just over a couple of weeks, you’ll start seeing patterns.  

Then what?

From there, look at the pattern and your response and you’ll need to figure out:

Emotions – Understand what emotion it triggers in you.  Is it panic?  Is it anger?  Is it sadness? 

Body sensations – Figure out where in your body you feel it when you get triggered.  Does your body get hot?  Does your heart start racing?  Does your stomach start doing flips?  Do you suddenly feel like getting up and running?

Oftentimes, we can feel it in our body first before we feel the emotion, but either way, your goal is to get better at recognizing when you’re feeling some sort of way.

But how do I manage that in the moment?

Once you get better at recognizing the trigger and recognizing when you’re FEELING triggered, you can then start to use calming techniques.  Things like (and links to help you use it):

• Grounding
• Mindfulness
• Deep Breathing

Remember, if all else fails, most of the time you can take a break.

These techniques can and do work for lots of people.

But it’s all about practicing using it so that you can automatically get better in the moment.   

Like learning a musical instrument or any new skill, it requires INTENTIONAL practice at the beginning before you can do it without thought.

You got this.

Cheers,

Chris

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PS – Whenever you’re ready, I have 3 ways to help you:

1. Free Strategy Assessment >>  If you’re a nonprofit leader, take a free, 5-minute quiz to evaluate your nonprofit’s strategy implementation plan
2. 1-hour Effective Performance Coaching Course >> If you’re a manager looking for strategies to be better at coaching your employees, take this free 1 hour course to boost up your coaching ability
3. Podcast: The Art and Science of Difficult Conversations. >> If you’re interested in more ways to manage difficult conversations, I also have a podcast,  Available wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube