Coaching a senior person recently we explored the importance of managing your anger. He wanted some tools to deal with it so I thought I would share the essence of our conversation with the intent it could support someone else in the same situation. 
I believe in the power and depth of these 3 simple yet incredibly challenging mindset shifts to manage your anger:
1. Learn to recognize and label your emotions – in our busyness we too rarely take the time to reflect on how we are feeling and know that emotions impact dramatically on how we choose to engage in conversations, give feedback to someone, make decisions and various other behaviors needed to survive in the business world. So be conscious of when you are feeling angry – be present and in the moment with it.
2. Become conscious of what triggers these emotions – sometimes anger is triggered by us perceiving someone is being lazy, or someone’s lack of initiative or lack of attention to detail. Start to understand these triggers and look to manage them constructively before emotion like anger is triggered in a disruptive way. So the most important thing is to start with YOU and how you can turn up differently to these situations. Be conscious of why you choose to feel anger and what triggers your choice
3. Should you feel anger then own it and excuse yourself from the situation until you can assert this anger constructively – never take it out on someone else! Remember you have chosen to be angry……..you could choose to access a different emotion – you could choose to see the situation differently……there are loads of choices available. In the short term you need a strategy to stop you from taking your anger out on someone – walk away after acknowledging your anger and that you want to resolve this situation/conversation tomorrow when you have had time to collect your thoughts more constructively.
Would love to hear from people who put these 3 steps into practice.
