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Udita (name changed), who often works from home, had an important work presentation on the first day of the week. She was both nervous and anticipative about the meeting. She had 25 minutes before logging in to the video conferencing app when her mother showed up in her room and asked her to join her for lunch. Udita told her mom she would eat later since it was almost time for her meeting. Her mom got upset no sooner and said, “It seems like all the other people at my home have important work to do; only I am the free and useless one here.” Those words got to Udita’s nerves, and she frowned, “Not again!” before turning to her presentation. Her mom stormed off.

In situations like these, acting from a self-focused mindset can be easy, which drives us to see other people as objects. Perhaps, Udita’s mom must have other commitments to look into after finishing lunch, so when Udita didn’t agree to join her, she started seeing Udita as an obstacle in her way of getting things done. As for Udita, she had an important presentation, so when her mom didn’t take her request positively, she possibly started perceiving her mom as an irrelevancy to ignore.

Udita had a few minutes before the presentation, but her mind constantly flashed back to her interaction with her mom. She, in fact, quickly realized that she was slipping into a self-focused mindset toward her mom. She knew she couldn’t continue if she wanted her presentation to go well and not worsen the relationship with her mother.

Udita soon recalled what she had learned about the three modes of applying the impact-focused mindset, instead-Self-Connection, Honest Self-Expression, and Empathic Connection.

Self-Connection

Self-Connection is about connecting with our feelings and needs rather than getting stuck in a cycle of blaming and justifications. Through this mode of Impact-focused mindset, we hold space to acknowledge what’s going on for us.

We can ask the following questions to connect with ourselves:

-What really happened?
Udita separated her judgments from what happened in the situation factually. She redirected her thoughts to what she heard and saw in the interaction with her mom. She recalled that her mom told her, “It seems like all other people at my home have important work to do, only I am the free and useless one here,” to which she responded, “Not again!”

-How do I feel?

Udita checked in with herself and realized she felt annoyed and discouraged upon hearing her mom’s words.

-What do I need?

With a self-focused mindset, it might have been easy for Udita to believe that her mother caused her feelings of annoyance and discouragement. The truth is that her mother’s words and actions only triggered those feelings in Udita. Her feelings emerged from her unmet needs for support and understanding, which she sought in the relationship with her mother.

-Do I have a specific request for myself or someone else?

Udita then realized she perhaps needed to focus on doing the presentation well for now. After the presentation, she decided to have a conversation with her mother. 

Empathic Listening

After Udita got off her meeting, she approached her mom and invited her to share how she felt. Although it did seem that the earlier incident still gripped her mom, she shared how she was disappointed and overwhelmed by her family members’ overlapping schedules. She expressed how she felt disconnected and all over the place. Udita could sense and understand that perhaps her mom had unmet needs for connection, certainty, and order. Instead of just assuming her mom’s needs, Udita asked if she had identified her needs correctly. Her mom confirmed and felt slightly relieved upon being understood.

Honest Self-Expression

After listening to her mom, Udita told her mother how she felt and what she needed (which she identified through Self-connection). She explained why she couldn't promptly act on her mom’s request. She had an important work presentation, and there was no way she could miss it. She requested her mom to have lunch without her on similar days ahead, which would help Udita meet her needs for support and understanding. She also promised to reheat and serve lunch for herself on such days without requiring her mom’s assistance in the kitchen. Udita also addressed her mom’s needs for connection, certainty, and order and assured her that she would inform her about her everyday schedule when she worked from home, so they could try to have lunch together whenever possible.

Based on Marshall B Rosenberg’s Compassionate Communication Model, Self-Connection, Empathic Listening, and Honest Self-Expression are three modes through which we can apply an impact-focused mindset. None of these modes or processes are a precedent to each other. In any given situation, not necessarily difficult ones, we can resort to either or all of these three modes to understand ourselves and others better beyond the playfield of who’s right and who’s wrong. An impact-focused mindset is about overcoming the rigidness of being the correct/better one, being curious about each other’s feelings and needs, and building concrete strategies together to meet those needs on any given day.

The author is the Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

Let’s start with a story. AZ Consulting Group is an organization that works toward improving management practices in client companies. Abhay and Nirav (names changed) are colleagues at AZ who manage the HR and IT teams. They worked closely to digitize human capital management for one of their clients to deal with talent and performance management challenges, skill development, and flexible work practices. While Abhay and Nirav tried to make life easier for their client, they sometimes had issues with each other. Abhay believed that Nirav was not great alone if Abhay didn’t provide him with the information about their client. At the same time, Nirav thought Abhay couldn’t do anything without his technological guidance. Abhay and Nirav were self-focused, and how they behaved toward each other hurt their relationship with the client company. Let us try to explore how. Abhay had worked with Pranay (name changed), who was the manager of the IT team before Nirav. They were part of a similar project, which was successful. Abhay could have shared the resources and insights from that project with Nirav, but he chose not to. Nirav eventually proposed an information management system to make HR-related information accessible to employees of their client company. Abhay saw some things that could have been improved in his proposal but didn’t insist on the necessary changes. The system Nirav proposed would make HR-related information accessible across every department without any boundaries whatsoever. Since the client company valued transparency and openness, Nirav thought his idea was outstanding no matter what Abhay thought. When Abhay and Nirav consulted the HR team and some key decision-makers, they seemed happy with the idea. However, neither Abhay nor Nirav made it a point to clarify to the clients that the employees could even access performance reports and feedback across all departments. When Abhay didn’t see Nirav bringing it up, he thought, ‘Well, why should I talk about it? It is his idea.’ The client company assumed there would be an inter-departmental flow of information on a generic level, with which they were encouraged to move forward. There was a massive backlash within two weeks of the system’s launch. Some employees had joined the client company a few months back and were a part of the biannual performance reviews. There was no harm in sharing the generic insights from their performance reviews with the other employees within and across their respective departments anonymously. Instead, the system showed every detail of the one/one interviews and performance feedback with disclosed identities. This incident created many problems in the client’s company. It triggered the new employees, and some old employees were on the verge of leaving the company because of the prevailing mistrust. When the client company’s managers consulted the AZ Consulting Group team, neither Abhay nor Nirav was ready to take responsibility for what had happened. Each one insisted on the role the other had to play in inviting the disaster for their client. Although the senior management at AZ intervened and was ready to make amends, the client eventually rolled back the project, and the companies never worked with each other again. Who was responsible for what happened? This incident dented AZ Consulting Group’s relationship with its client. We aren’t sure what happened to Abhay and Nirav in the aftermath but you might be wondering whose fault it was. Maybe Abhay should have shared insights from previous projects to help Nirav identify the blind spots of their efforts much earlier. Maybe Nirav needed to be extra careful regarding the sensitivity of the system. He should have mindfully considered the loopholes of his idea before implementing it. The client could have been more inquiring about the approach before bringing everyone from their organization on board. Whose fault? Who was responsible for what happened? Was it Abhay, Nirav, or the client company? A self-focused mindset perpetuates a lack of accountability What do you think might have happened in the headquarters of the AZ Consulting Group after the incident? Abhay might have pointed fingers at Nirav and his team for whatever happened; for not considering his feedback. Nirav might have blamed Abhay for not supporting and guiding him well. There could be so many possibilities. But what harmed AZ Consulting Group’s relationship with its client? In a single phrase, the answer is—a self-focused mindset. Abhay and Nirav were self-focused from the very beginning of the collaboration. Each saw the other as an irrelevance to ignore and an obstacle to overcome. Each saw the other as an object—dismissing their needs, objectives, and concerns. It eventually meant bad news for the collaboration and their relationship with the client. Not even once did they think about how their behavior toward each other and the underlying (self-focused) mindset would impact the project. One of the many things that a self-focused mindset does to us is that it makes us unaccountable for our actions. It prevents us from seeing the impact we have on those around us. It prevents us from thinking about shared outcomes and goals. It blinds us from acknowledging the part we have to play in making things better or worse. Impact-focused mindset: The key to overcoming the costs of a self-focused mindset Had Abhay and Nirav shown openness and care toward each other and the collaboration, they might have worked better as a team. With an impact-focused mindset and accountability toward their actions, they might have been able to see each other as people, people with needs, objectives, and challenges similar to their own. Had they operated with an impact-focused mindset, we know it would be a completely different fate for both companies. Rather than taking corrective measures and making amends, even in the immediate aftermath of the mishap, Abhay and Nirav took things personally and didn’t accept their mistake. Eventually, it led them to compromise their integrity and cost them their client. We have no clue whether Abhay and Nirav stayed in AZ. What we know is that organizations and employees can readily become self-focused in such high-stakes situations. In this case, the client could have easily sued AZ and the rest would be a bitter history. When an organization audits its financial reports at the end of the year, it can often overlook one aspect—the unresolved conflicts resulting from the team members’ self-focused mindset. These unresolved conflicts are the most expensive yet unaccounted cost in a company’s balance sheet—a perspective we must be careful of if we are to live and lead impactfully. The author is the linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

An essential realization I’ve had with time is that although we would ideally opt to live drama-free lives, we somehow contribute to the same problems that create drama instead.  For instance, we tell our family members to remain calm and deal with things patiently whenever they go wrong, but it doesn’t even take us a minute to lash out at the very same people we advise about staying mindful. Many might think that the problem here is behavior. If we changed our behavioral approach, things would automatically improve. Well, maybe. Are we missing out on the bigger picture here, though? As far as I’ve learned and experienced, it’s not behavioral change that can help us improve things but something more significant. It’s what we call ‘mindset.’ Let me illustrate this with an example. Until a couple of years ago, when I had to travel in an overcrowded public bus, I dreaded the process. Even before getting into the vehicle, I thought about how it would ruin my day. I thought, “I never signed up for this,” “I don’t have to go through this again!” When these thoughts accompanied me on my commute, I would naturally get triggered because of the inconveniences I had to go through. “Idiot, idiot, idiot!” that is what my inner voice would ask me to tell the driver who sped through the road to overtake another bus, to the co-driver who called out to people to get down at their bus stops in a shrill and loud voice, and to the passengers who pushed past me. I used to get so triggered that even if I could help some co-passengers, I didn’t do so on purpose. Some people would sometimes enter with heavy backpacks, and although I would be seated occasionally, I would not take those from them. I used to start acting out of vengeance, “If they don’t take my bag when I hardly manage to stand properly, why should I do them a favor?” It wasn’t all too bad all the time. I used to catch myself when I had such toxic thoughts. I reminded myself that all the other passengers faced as much inconvenience as I did. Even the driver and the co-driver must deal with so many people throughout the day, so was there any point in perpetuating bitterness and seeing people around me as my enemies? Hence, I left seats for fellow passengers whenever I could endure standing. I would offer to hold a struggling passenger’s bag while I got a seat. But, despite these, it was just so easy to slip and go down that negative spiral the very next day. Mindset drives behavior Now, if we look at the above example, although I tried to change my behavior, I could not bring sustained changes in my thought process and approach toward people. It happens because of a simple yet complex reason. It’s our mindset that drives behavior and not the other way around. So, no matter how often I tried to remain positive, I would always hate the commute because I never entirely developed the mindset to persevere. And, when I talk about mindset, we must acknowledge Martin Buber’s philosophical wisdom on the ways of being. Buber demonstrated that at all times, no matter what we’re doing or communicating, we are always in the world in an ‘I-It’ way or ‘I-Thou’ way. Based on Buber’s philosophy, we can consider that there are two mindsets: self-focused and impact-focused. The two mindsets With a self-focused mindset, we perpetuate the ‘I-It’ way of being. We see other people not as people but as objects. Unlike the self-focused mindset, when we operate with an impact-focused mindset, we’re in the ‘I-Thou’ way of being. With an impact-focused mindset, we see people like ourselves with needs, objectives, and challenges like ours. Catching yourself in the self-focused mindset Learning about this concept opened me to seeing other people as people on the commute. Honestly, so many instances still disgusted me when things didn’t go a certain way and when I saw public transportation mismanaged. However, this concept has helped me catch myself quickly when I become self-focused. It helps when I ask myself, ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, how self-focused I am right now?’ The higher the score, the more effort I put in to consider the ‘needs, objectives, and challenges’ of the individuals I don’t see as people during that time. There have still been times when I have been unmistakably self-focused—at home, at work, with friends and loved ones. Despite the challenges to remain impact-focused, what helps stick to it is a simple self-reminder: “How can I not contribute to making things worse?” Implications of an impact-focused Mindset I know what you must be thinking, does an impact-focused mindset mean stepping down and letting the other person have things their way? It certainly isn’t, but think about this: when two people are self-focused, they see each other as objects. Neither of them would listen to each other’s perspectives. Neither would be alive to the other person’s needs, objectives, and challenges. What would such patterns lead to? Perhaps it will sabotage the relationship for good. It’s essential that even if other people are self-focused, we take a step forward to understand what’s really troubling them instead of taking things personally. Of course, it’s easy to tell ourselves so. But if we think about it—most of the things people tell us aren’t because certain things are wrong with us. Inward expressions come from unmet needs, unfulfilled objectives, and unyielding challenges. If we can open our eyes to spotting these in the other person, we will be less concerned about proving ourselves right and more about having peace in relationships. As Byron Katie – an American speaker and author who teaches a method of self-inquiry known as ‘The Work of Byron Katie’ or simply as ‘The Work,’ says, “Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them.” The author is the Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

I’m sure we have all felt frustrated, disappointed, hopeless, or sad when things didn’t go as planned or we couldn’t meet our expectations. In such situations, developing a sense of pessimism is natural because we see no way out or become weighed down by dread. We usually begin to think that the problem or the situation we find ourselves in will remain permanent, negatively impact all or most areas of our lives, and stop seeing possibilities or the choices to overcome the problem. It’s the reason why pessimism usually has a negative connotation. Like everything in life, pessimism also has some potential upsides. Pessimism can increase the likelihood of us doing something well. For example, when sending a proposal for collaboration to a new client, having a sense of pessimism will allow me to identify the potential reasons why they would say no or might not necessarily like what I propose. Anticipating these factors can help me become more mindful of the client’s needs and work on the proposal accordingly. What’s more, I can also be in a position to offer alternatives if one collaborative idea isn’t received well. In this sense, it helps to have a healthy sense of pessimism to ensure preparedness and broaden our thinking generally. However, sustained and excessive indulgence in the pessimistic thought process can detrimentally affect our well-being. It can happen more so when we get underwhelming results despite our efforts or when the circumstances are frequently unfavorable for us to do well. For example, if the client says no and I constantly feel disheartened and lose confidence in my skills to persuade clients, it will eventually impact my motivation to do better, limit my vision/willingness for growth, and negatively impact my overall well-being. So, how can we avoid getting caught up in excess pessimism and develop a sense of hope and possibility beyond our daily struggles? In other words, how can we cultivate a sense of optimism? One answer can be ‘The PERMA model of well-being’ developed by Martin E. P. Seligman, an American positive psychologist. The framework can help us redirect our focus to some essential everyday aspects of well-being and optimism, namely: Positive Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (PERMA). Positive Emotions: This aspect helps us pertain to practices for experiencing or cultivating pleasant emotions (such as happiness, excitement, joy, hope, inspiration, amazement, and gratitude). Even when one or two things don’t go well in our lives, it can be helpful to identify practices that can help us feel pleasant emotions to take care of our well-being and exercise emotional regulation. There can be various ways of experiencing positive emotions, such as being playful with close ones, spending time with oneself reflecting, traveling, reading, watching movies/series, cooking, eating favorite food(s), hanging out with loved ones, etc. Engagement: This component suggests immersing ourselves in experiences or activities that give us a sense of flow. While distraction is just a click away these days, being in a state of flow can let us be absorbed and entirely focused on a task or a personal project, giving us a sense of contentment, encouragement, or inspiration to do well. We lose track of time when we are engaged in something (in a good way). Different people can feel engaged in different ways. I feel engaged when writing, reading, facilitating sessions, journaling/reflecting, or conversing with a loved one. Relationships: This aspect reinforces the importance of building social connections and relationships in a way that promotes both our sense of belonging and well-being. Cultivating relationships with friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and the community can contribute to an increased sense of happiness, joy, contentment, and belonging. Figuring out how we value different relationships, how we feel, and what mutual needs to meet through each can be further helpful. For instance, if my best friend and I feel safe with each other, I can reach out to him when I need empathy and vice versa. On the other hand, say I need help on a professional project. In that case, I can contact a trusted supervisor, mentor, or colleague for support while creating space to help them when needed. Meaning: A significant aspect of cultivating optimism and well-being is finding meaning in everyday activities. It includes recognizing and dedicating time to life goals, personal/professional projects, and activities, translating our values into action—all or more that give our life meaning and a sense of communion. One could derive from different aspects, such as cultivating healthy relationships, doing meaningful work, learning, having new experiences, traveling, telling stories, working toward a philanthropic cause, dedicating time/effort/energy to work toward a change we wish to see in the community and larger world, etc. Anything that can connect with our purpose, mission, and philosophy of life can be meaningful. Accomplishment: This component drives us to set goals and work toward them. It can help us create space for everyday small wins, which don’t have to be grand. For example, reading ten pages every evening can make me feel accomplished if I want to identify as a reader. However, this component can also include our larger goals and the milestones we identify and work toward to meet those goals. These goals can be personal, professional, or both. It could include learning a skill set, growing in a particular aspect of life (time management, financial planning, working on the difficulties in a relationship), communicating needs, and translating our values into actions (such as practicing gratitude, exercising choice, offering support to people in our lives). Something as simple as taking one day at a time can also help us feel accomplished. The next time you feel bogged down by pessimistic thoughts, redirect your attention to the PERMA model. Ask yourself: What can I do to experience positive/pleasant emotions? What would help me become engaged or lose track of time? What meaningful or authentic connections can I reach out to? What gives me/will provide me with a sense of purpose or meaning? What’s a recent small win I can celebrate? The author is the linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

Imagine you’re working on a presentation that you have the next day for an important client. You’re doing the best you can to gather and construct ideas. You might think of some of the best techniques you can use in the presentation to get your message across. You might work on a story to hook your clients to your key messages or appeal. The next day you’re waiting in the meeting room at your client’s office. You’re having all kinds of thoughts. When the decision-makers arrive, you have a brief conversation with them before beginning the presentation. You are nervous and yet all pumped up at the same time. You start the presentation, and everything’s going perfectly well. You are almost about to wrap up when your client stops you and asks, “Great presentation! Your service is interesting too – but what’s in it for us? How can we grow with the help of your proposed plan?” You realize how you never gave that aspect a proper thought to begin with. From here on, you know what you say to answer that question will only be tweaked ideas of what you want your client to do for you. Will this guarantee the deal? Well, nobody knows. What do you think is happening here? What went wrong? The individual was operating with a self-focused mindset, and the example I shared above discusses just one aspect. They missed out on one significant factor that would have helped them better serve their clients–considering their needs, objectives, ​and ​challenges.​​ We might not necessarily see the people ​we​ work with as obstacles to overcome or irrelevancies to ignore. Still, when we focus only on our goals and what we need from a particular partnership, we have already started operating from a self-focused mindset. We start seeing them as vehicles to further our objectives and needs rather than strategic partners to work with and achieve shared goals. What does it mean to have a self-focused mindset toward clients? As employees, managers, and consultants, we need to realize that our relationship with our clients can be strong when we help them identify what they need and how it can be fulfilled. If we begin to believe that we have to take care of ourselves first and ​only​ ​then ​will we pay attention to the needs and objectives of our clients, they will most definitely sense this sooner or later. Such an approach will not help us invite long-term partners for our brand. If we’re only looking to make our business case, get the deal, and close it, we’re serving neither ourselves nor our clients. With a self-focused mindset, we see what we need from a particular client. While in a business sense, this isn’t entirely wrong, who do you think will be disadvantaged the most because of such an approach? If we’re blind to what our clients need and look for, they will eventually feel worn out in such a relationship and look for other organizations to work and create value with. We might still not choose to see this reality. We might not say it out loud, but we consider our clients blameworthy for the deal’s failure and, eventually, the strained relationship. The next thing we know, because of our client’s word of mouth, we might not even get other people to work with us readily. So, when we think only about our goals, needs, and objectives, we compromise our organization’s results. Making our business case with an impact-focused mindset When we say it’s essential to understand what our clients need, it doesn’t imply that our needs do not matter – of course, they do. But we should find the means and medium to align our needs with our client’s needs and build strategies and actionable principles to achieve them together. We can do that by operating with an impact-focused mindset—to collaborate, not to outsmart our clients and persuade them to use our services. What we focus on is channelizing efforts to attain collective results. Most individuals and organizations must assess if their organizational culture and systemic approach toward their clients are pervasively self-focused. They could be focusing only on their tasks, goals, and growth without considering how their actions could impact the outcomes of their colleagues, subordinates, supervisors, and clients. However, when individuals and organizations develop an impact-focused mindset, it makes the organizational climate positive – to eventually help in building positive interpersonal relationships with clients. With an impact-focused perspective, individuals and organizations start focusing on collective results. They start understanding that what they do as an organization impacts what their clients do. When we have an impact-focused mindset, our clients become valuable to us, and we want to direct our actions toward helping them to the best of our abilities. We then make reasonable efforts to help them achieve better outcomes so they have to make less effort to correct things themselves. Rather than blaming our clients for being inconsiderate and incompetent, with an impact-focused mindset, we work around solutions to the problems in our clients​’​ organizations. We work ​toward​ making them our allies. How can we make the shift​ toward an impact-focused mindset? ​An impact-focused mindset can help us see our clients as people. So how can we make the shift to it? Knowing our clients​’​ needs, objectives, and challenges is a great place to start. Asking ourselves a few questions can be helpful in that regard. What is it that our clients need? What do they want to achieve for themselves? What strategies do they work with? What is their organizational philosophy? What challenges are they encountering in achieving what they want? What problems exist in their systems? What’s preventing them from becoming the best at what they do? When we’re genuinely interested to know our clients through open and honest conversations (that aren’t too invading), there are good chances that we can identify areas where we can add value. When we make ​our​ business case, we can tap into the places where the clients ​might​need a strategic partnership ​and propose how they can benefit from having us on board. An aspect we should keep in mind that can help us humanize our interpersonal relationships ​with our clients is that ‘we need them, just as much as they need us.’ As individuals and organizations, we can’t work in isolation; we need to have strategic partners, we need to have allies, and we need to collaborate if we are to achieve collective results. So, as much as we would want our clients to understand and consider our proposal, we must not give them a perception that working with us will be bad for their organizational integrity. Finally, it’s essential to understand that even if we might change our ways ​to become​ impact-focused, we shouldn’t expect our clients to change along with us. A primary principle of an impact-focused mindset is changing our patterns for good rather than trying to ‘fix’ or ‘correct’ other people. If we give our clients a sense that we’re right and know what’s best for them, they will most likely resist having a professional relationship with us. At this point, it helps to recall what the founder of Arbinger Institute, Terry Warner, said, “We most effectively influence one another to change by letting ourselves be changed.” If we keep this perception in mind while considering our client’s needs, objectives, and challenges, they might see us as an understanding organization. Even if they don’t, we won’t blame them for not accepting our offer. We will know that at least we tried. Aprajita Jha is the linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com

‘Why are you feeling so low?’ ‘It’s going to be okay!’ ‘Cheer up!’ ‘Don’t be sad, don’t cry like a girl.’ These are things we say and hear in our interpersonal interactions. Sadness doesn’t readily get a place in social media posts or family dinners. People also find it challenging to share their sadness with friends or romantic partners to either not come across as complaining or ungrateful and even risk being misunderstood or shunned. Sadness is also closely associated with ‘overthinking,’ ‘cynicism,’ or ‘being depressed.’ People often navigate sadness with ‘toxic positivity’, the need to remain joyful regardless of the underlying feelings. However, we must understand that sadness is a basic and universal human emotion we experience in the face of a loss. The function of sadness is to help us connect with our loved ones (to seek comfort/support/empathy). So, it’s not a ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ emotion, as usually perceived. Experiencing sadness isn’t pleasant, so it is an ‘unpleasant’ emotion. But sadness signals that we need comfort, support, or empathy through the presence of the loved one(s). When do we experience sadness? There could be many triggers for us to feel sad. For example, failure/inability to accomplish a personal goal or expectation, facing rejection, witnessing people act contrary to their commitments toward us, experiencing the end of relationships, and the death of loved ones. There could be more contextual nuances to experiencing sadness based on culture or interpersonal dynamics. Different people cope with sadness differently. Some people like to take their space and return to working on what’s bothering them later. Some prefer to have conversations with loved ones to share the heaviness and despair associated with the feeling. Some completely shun it by forcing themselves to focus on things that are going well. Interestingly, some people also channel their sadness through other emotions like anger and fear. Consider the case of a person whose partner didn’t pick up their call or left their message on ‘seen’. Instead of communicating that firsthand sadness, they express their anger at their partner. On the other hand, they might leave their partner a series of texts expressing concerns about their whereabouts or having apprehensions about their relationship altogether. So, there can be a range of healthy and unhealthy mechanisms people opt for to navigate sadness. It might also help to know some general tendencies or patterns we might have when we’re sad to understand ourselves better and to make choices more intentionally. When we feel sad, for instance, we see adverse situations on a more permanent spectrum of experience. For example, when we speak up in a group of friends, an office meeting, or a class, we might be disheartened when our thoughts or perspectives are not considered. So, we might think there’s no point in ever expressing ourselves again. Sadness also paints our worldview in a fashion where we start seeing everything from the lens of sorrow. We make the situations out to be more gloomy or hopeless than they might be. As in the previous instance, we might start seeing the world as inconsiderate, uncaring, and unempathetic and even begin victimizing ourselves. When we’re sad, we also stop seeing the possibilities or the choice to facilitate change for the better. What’s worse, we sometimes feel choiceless to do anything at all. So, instead of choosing to speak up again in that gathering, meeting, or class, we stop ourselves from making any additional efforts because we assume that we’re bound to fail no matter what. We might sulk rather than speak. Another pattern accompanying sadness is that we don’t seem to be grateful for the things we have working well for us. Instead, we start paying attention to all those painful, inconvenient, and challenging things, which takes us further into the negative spiral of thoughts and actions. The next time you are sad, pause and do things that make you feel at ease but try not to run away from the sadness. Instead, redirect your efforts to connecting with yourself; ask yourself which unmet need the sadness is emerging from and what you can do about it at a favorable time. To navigate the emotion further, reach out to a loved one and explore the question together as there’s no shame in needing emotional support. Sadness doesn’t indicate that our lives will continue to be sapped of hope, joy, love, connection, and anticipation. It signals that we are interpersonal beings and need support, empathy, care, and listening when we experience a loss or an unmet need. Sadness plays an essential role in asking us to take refuge in our connections, whether it may be the connection with ourselves or those we love and count on to support us, especially during adverse or challenging situations. The author is the Linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com  

It’s your birthday. Your friends throw you a surprise party. How do you feel? Most likely you will feel good. A year later, it’s your birthday again. The same friends throw you a surprise party. How do you feel? Is it necessary that you genuinely feel like you did the year before? Could there be a possibility that you were needing solitude and so were secretly hoping that your friends wouldn’t ‘bother’ you this time? In that case, you would most likely feel unpleasant feelings even though the action on the part of your friends remained the same. Let’s consider another situation. You and your friend had a plan to go on a road trip. The friend cancels at the last minute. How do you feel? Perhaps frustrated and disappointed. But could there be a scenario wherein your friend cancels but instead of feeling frustrated and disappointed, you actually feel relieved? This could well be the case if you were the one having to cancel because of some issues at home. You were scared your friend wouldn’t understand. Just as you were thinking of a nice way to tell him, he calls you first. We often confuse ‘stimulus’—the words and actions of others—with the cause of our feelings. How we feel can be triggered by other people’s actions, but the cause is our own underlying needs, values, and expectations. This is best explained by how the same action (a teacher’s comment directed at the whole class) might affect one student but another student might not be bothered at all. We experience unpleasant emotions when we cannot meet some of our needs. Your friend canceling the road trip stimulated you to feel frustrated and disappointed. The cause of those feelings was that your needs for fun, adventure, companionship, and reliability weren’t met. Quite similarly, we experience pleasant emotions when we are able to meet our needs—not because someone made us feel so. In the second instance, the stimulus is the same as earlier (your friend canceling), but the cause of your pleasant feelings such as relief was because of your need for ensuring your friend would understand and wouldn’t go ahead without you. In our interactions with people, we either blame them or praise them for making us feel a certain way. ‘Don’t piss me off.’ '’You make me joyful.’ ‘I feel sad because of you.’ ‘You make me feel worthy of love.’ In all of these expressions, we are pointing at other people for making us feel angry, sad, joyful, and worthy. The fact is that our needs are responsible for our feelings, not other people’s actions or their words. Your partner takes you out on a date. What emotions are you likely to feel? Joyful, glad, thrilled? While your partner might have helped stimulate these feelings, the actual cause of your feelings might root in one or more of your needs like closeness, love, fun, laughter. You ask your parents for money to go on a trip with your friends, and they say no. You might think, “My parents are always looking for reasons to annoy me.” The fact is that your parents didn’t give you money and as a result, you felt frustrated or annoyed because you could not meet your need for entertainment or connection with your friends. Your parents’ action is not the cause of your annoyance, it’s only the stimulus. The problem with thinking that other people cause us to feel certain emotions makes us emotionally dependent on them and also stops us from assuming responsibility for our interpretation of events in our lives. We become reactive, especially when our needs aren’t met and therefore start blaming, judging and criticizing others. Let’s try to differentiate between some stimuli and causes of feelings in our daily experiences. Judgmental thought: “Idiot!” Stimulus: My sister didn’t take the garbage out of the house this morning. Feelings: Anger, disappointment, disgust Unmet/unfulfilled needs behind the feelings: Support, order and cleanliness Judgmental thought: “You make me so happy!” (Notice that this is a positive judgment.) Stimulus” A friend abroad spoke to me over a video call. Feelings: Joyful, excited Met/fulfilled needs behind the feelings: Connection, fun, laughter, companionship Judgmental thought: “Such a scary person!” Stimulus: Someone spoke to me in a loud voice. Feelings: Fearful, worried Unmet/unfulfilled needs behind the feelings: Respect, empathy, peace In all these examples, no matter how strong, thoughts like “Idiot!” “You make me so happy!” “Such a scary person!” are all judgments. Being emotionally intelligent means developing the capacity to distinguish between our judgmental thoughts, how we actually feel, the stimulus (the trigger) of the feeling, and the cause (underlying needs) behind the feeling. This insight can be the difference between getting stuck in blame, shame, guilt and/or resentment and resolving differences peacefully. The author is the linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com  

“There are the two main reasons we don’t get our needs met. First, we don’t know how to express our needs to begin with and second if we do, we forget to put a clear request after it, or we use vague words like appreciate, listen, recognize, know, be real, and stuff like that.” —Marshall B. Rosenberg We’ve often heard terms like, “You’re so needy.” This statement implies how we don’t consider having needs as something normal or even useful. We probably have an idea that only selfish people have needs, which is far from being true. Needs are universal and we all have them. In fact, every action or inaction of ours is an attempt to meet an underlying need. Why is it that we don’t know how to communicate our needs then? There could be two reasons for this. One, we aren’t aware of our needs. Even if we are, we don’t know how to express them. Becoming aware of our needs enables us to understand what we really want and value in any given situation. It anchors our actions in a way in which we can meet those needs. For instance, only if I’m aware that I have a need for entertainment, will I consider what could be the different strategies and actions to meet those needs. Some of such strategies could be going to a movie hall, visiting an amusement park, or video calling a friend with whom I like to be playful. However, if I don’t understand that I have a need for entertainment, I can’t think of these various possible ways to meet that need. Moreover, chances are, I will not communicate this well to the other person. I might say, “Let’s go to the movies!” This won’t help the other person understand why I want to go to the movies. They might either agree, in which case, I will have my need for entertainment fulfilled. But, let’s say, they tell me, “Why don’t we go to that nearby restaurant instead? Looks like a happening place!” In this case, the other person might be assuming that I just have a need to go out or explore. So, unless I tell them that I have a need for entertainment and hence, I want to go to the movies, they won’t know. This brings us to an understanding that once we understand needs, the next step is to make a request (or verify someone else’s request if they don’t communicate their preferences directly.) Requests are specific actions (strategies) that help us meet our needs. Making a request means being able to clearly ask for what we want; suggest the person what to do rather than what we don’t want them to do; propose a specific action to the other person. These are a few examples that can help us understand requests well. What we say: “Stop making so much noise.” What a clear request looks like: “Please speak in a low voice in this room.” What we say: “I want you to give me all your attention.” What a clear request looks like: “I’d like you to put your phone away when we’re having a conversation.” What we say: “Please give honest feedback about what you think regarding my idea.” What a clear request looks like: “Please tell me two to three things that can be improved on the idea that I just shared with you.” What we say: “Don’t be a tattletale.” What a clear request looks like: “I request you to keep what I just told you to yourself.” What we say: “Will you please give me some motivation?” What a clear request looks like: “I want you to tell me what’s one thing I can start doing to get working on my assignment.” What we say: “Can’t you ever show some affection?” What a clear request looks like: “I want you to meet me on Saturday at the cafe at three in the afternoon so that we can have some conversations and spend time together.” Making clear requests help us to transform our expectations into agreements. For instance, if the request is, “Can you please turn on your cameras once I start with the class?” During a virtual class, the speaker has an expectation that students should have their videos turned on. Communicating their need, they are trying to form an agreement with others to turn their cameras on. The speaker can also verify whether their request is being accepted or not by looking at the number of people who turn on their cameras as opposed to those who don’t. Making clear requests also doesn’t guarantee that we will have what we ask of the other person, but it will help the other person clearly know what we want. Making a request means being able to propose a specific action to the other person while also being open enough to hear a ‘no’ as a response [since we understand that the ‘no’ is coming from a need that they’re trying to meet, instead of rejecting us]. The author is the linchpin at My Emotions Matter, an education initiative that helps individuals and teams learn the mindset and skills of Emotional Intelligence. You can learn more at myemotionsmatter.com