A time of change is bound to sometimes bring us unwanted emotions such as anger, frustration, fear, and sadness. When this happens, our first response can often be to want these emotions to go away. But if we pause for a moment, and remember that every problem is an opportunity, we can learn to transform these unwanted emotions into something more useful.
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Anger and frustration can become Passion and Determination:
Anger and frustration show us what we care about — we want the opposite of what has happened.
If we pause and realise this then we can use the situation to get clearer about precisely what we want instead. Then we can look for new ways to achieve that.
In this way we can transform our anger into clarity, focus, passion, and determination to create what we care most about. We can shift from frustration (which is anger combined with a sense of powerlessness) to passion and determination to do what we can.
Fear can become Courage:
Fear comes from imagining something that hasn’t happened yet: it is ‘False Evidence Appearing Real‘. Courage isn’t an absence of fear: it is feeling the fear and taking action anyway.
So if we notice our fear then we can ask ourselves what we are afraid of.
Then we can identify “What is the worst that could happen?” and come up with a plan to deal with that. Now our worst case scenario is covered.
Then we can get clear on what other ways forward we might want instead and then choose the option that inspires us most. And then we can manage the risks and build the inspiration, determination, and enthusiasm that will move us forward despite our fear.
This puts us back in control: we are now making proactive choices.
And it transforms the meaning of the word Fear from ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’ to ‘Face Everything And Rise’.
Sadness can be turned into Aliveness and Joy:
Sadness is a sign that we have lost something important to us. The opposite of sadness is aliveness and joy.
So if we ask ourselves what we feel sad about then we can decide to rebuild it, maybe better than before. And if we ask ourselves when we felt most alive and joyful then we can find our purpose and our values.
Once we have this clarity then we can look for new ways to put it into practice.
We can let go of looking back at what we have lost and shift our focus to looking forward to create what we most want.
We can transform our feelings of loss into inspiration to build what we care most about.
In this way we turn sadness into joy, exhilaration, and flow.
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The unwanted emotions that we are bound to feel sometimes during this time of change are just temporary. We weren’t feeling them a week ago and we won’t be feeling them a week from now. They are not truth. They are signals and signposts that show us what we care about most. And we can transform them to build the clarity, courage, and enthusiasm to create the world we most want.
This is another step to becoming antifragile.
Have you or the people around you been feeling any unwanted emotions lately? Would it be useful to transform these emotions into the clarity, courage, and inspiration that will lead you to where you most want to be?
Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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