This article is part of a series exploring human emotion at work. If you are new here you can read about the motivation for the series by following this link.
The blood boiled beneath my skin and I could feel heat radiating from my cheeks. Irritation graduated to blistering anger as the final strand of patience slipped from my weakly held grip. I screamed into the empty room and immediately felt relieved that no one had witnessed my childish outburst.
You may be surprised to learn that the trigger for this reaction was a colleague asking for the status of a task I was working on. Why would such an innocuous and common question invoke an emotional escalation that I could not control? What made me so angry and how could I make it stop?
Being asked for status updates is a regular occurrence for a software developer. The inquiring mind is doing so because they too have to answer to someone. There is a party upstream requesting this information and I, being the holder of the status, am simply one in a chain of many. Yet, I have often found it impossible to avoid the fury this natural flow of information causes me.
I spent years rationalizing my frustration while looking in all the wrong places for the true explanation.
I blamed the other person. “They are impatient”, I told myself.
I blamed the process. “Ad hoc status updates should never happen. There should be a designated time and place for these discussions.”
I blamed the interruption. “How can they expect me to get my work done when they keep breaking my focus!”
I blamed everything I could see while the real culprit lay hidden.
A few weeks ago I made a discovery that changed everything. I had been speaking ad nauseam to people about my frustration around status updates. Some could relate but many could not understand what was so upsetting to me. I could not blame them for I didn’t quite understand it myself. I knew I was upset but I was not convinced that my previous explanations told the whole story. What was I missing?
After a few days of reflection, and replaying the countless times I’ve experienced this over the years, something new struck me. The anger was a reaction to a prior emotional state; anxiety. I realized that being asked for status updates triggered my body’s natural response to sudden stress. A series of self doubting questions quickly piled up in my mind.
“Do they think I’m too slow? Am I too slow?”
“Will I disappoint them?”
“Are they going to make an unreasonable change to the deadline?”
Lessons Learned:
Anxiety is often hidden by louder emotions.
If you look beyond the anger you may find the trigger.
Once you found the trigger you can change your environment.
Changing my environment to better respond to these triggers involves two steps.
Be mindful of what is driving my reaction. Am I really angry with this other person or is this my body’s natural response to stress? Answering this question helps me identify the real problem and focus on addressing that. I can then look towards reducing the stress rather than starting a fight.
Once I understand my triggers it is important to be vulnerable with those around me. It is uncomfortable to expose myself in this way but it will lead to others sharing and better overall communication. If people understand my triggers they can be more sensitive in their approach.
The second of these steps is the harder of the two and not always feasible. Being more mindful and purposeful in our reactions is something we can all do. However, being vulnerable in a professional environment requires a safe space to share and we may not always have that luxury. For now, I suggest focusing on what you can control; identifying and responding to the underlying emotion.
Anxiety can often be drowned out by a louder emotion. This prevents us from dealing with the root cause of our stress. The next time you are feeling angry or pissed off consider looking beneath the surface to see if there is a prior emotion fueling that rage.
Have you discovered hidden anxiety that was masked by something else? If so, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
Thanks for reading :)
Bryan
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