Did you know an estimated 31% of all US adults experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives? And research indicates 75-90% of all sickness and disease starts with how you manage emotions and stress. Recruiting is a stressful and difficult job, which makes managing our mental health critically important.

Emotions are part of the limbic system of your brain, and most of your decisions are driven by emotions. Your neocortex (rational brain) is where logic is processed, but the limbic system (emotional brain) reacts to events first. You can’t be logical and emotional in the same moment. You’re one or the other. 

Given our health is decided by how we handle stress, here are a few ways to effectively manage emotions:

1. The buck stops here. You’re in charge. You control your life and your health. It’s not because of your parents, or where you grew up, or your spouse or kids. You make the decisions for your own life, and owning this fully is the first step to managing your emotions.
2. You will feel good emotions and bad emotions each day. Accept this reality. It’s unrealistic and sets you up for failure if you expect everything to be happy all the time. Life doesn’t work like that.
3. Spend Thinking Time on the causes for the emotions. Often, when we are reacting to something strongly, it isn’t really about that situation. There’s likely a similarity between the situation you’re in, and something important which is really bothering you. Dig in and figure out the cause.
4. Who needs to experience your emotions? If you’re sad, do others need to know you’re sad? If you’re angry, do others need to know you’re angry? Likely not. Just because you feel a certain way, doesn’t mean you need to act on how you feel. See #1.
5. Do Not React When You’re Upset. Give it a beat. Take a moment. Distract yourself. If you’re upset, you need to wait until you calm down and are in control of your emotions. Uncontrolled emotions never accomplish anything.
6. What’s the silver lining? There’s always an upside. Did your parents ignore you growing up? It likely made you resourceful. Did a client fire you? It likely opens time for you to find better clients. Sometimes the silver lining can be hard to find, but they’re always there if we look hard enough.
7. Can you control or influence what is happening? If you can’t, you must let it go. If you focus your energy on something you can’t impact, you’ll find yourself running in circles. You can’t control many of the things in life, but you can control how you react to them.
8. In the grand scheme of things, is this really important? The candidate didn’t call you after the interview. Your mom gave you side eye when you shared something you were doing. A car cut you off in traffic. How important are these things? When you find yourself reacting to something, pause and ask the question. Likely, the very thing you’re reacting to is inconsequential. (But did you die?)
9. Find moments where you can be fully present. Right here in the moment with your feet under you on the ground. Notice things around you. Find the details. Make the observations. When we’re thinking about the past, we’re often ruminating. When we’re thinking of the future, we’re often anxious. Staying in the moment is one of the easiest ways to manage your own emotions.
10. Gratitude matters. I heard Alex Hormozi share a story on a podcast last week where when he’s feeling down, he tries to imagine himself as an 85-year-old man, who has somehow been put back into his current body. He has all the knowledge, but his body doesn’t hurt, his brain works well, and this helps him to find gratitude in the smaller things. I love this concept.