I often recommend Dr. Susan David’s book called “Emotional Agility” when discussing emotional well-being with individuals keen to learn more stress management and coping skills. Dr Susan David has an amazing website too that shares many resources for emotional agility. There, you can also find her remarkable TED Talk that led me to dig deeper into her work.
Reading books allow us to gain knowledge. We however have to practise what we learn and apply the principles to embody the knowledge. Taking action is what creates behavioural change, in addition to cognitively gaining insight.
I thought to use this post to discuss and walk through what it means to act with emotional agility and how it helps with emotional regulation.
Emotional Agility in a Nutshell:
Take data from our emotions + commit to actions aligned with personal values
Emotional Agility: Showing Up and Stepping Out
One of the key principles around emotional agility is viewing our emotions, our thoughts, our stories and urges as data. Emotional agility is practising observing our emotions, our thoughts and stories with compassion and curiosity.
Emotions are not good nor bad; emotions give us information about what matters to us. In our society, emotions that are experienced as pleasant tend to be celebrated more than emotional experiences that are felt to be uncomfortable or unpleasant. Emotional agility is considering that no emotion is better than the other: the uncomfortable ones convey as much information as the comfortable ones. Part of practising emotional agility is recognising that we all have emotions and that having emotions is normal and not a bad thing.
Our emotions, thoughts and urges are data; they are not our directives. They are here to inform us and help us make choices. We can tap on mindfulness to observe the data in our emotions, stories, behaviours to then respond to situations with empowerment.
Emotional Agility: Walking Your Why and Moving On
Practising emotional agility also requires us to identify our unique personal values. We then use our values to guide us when making choices and taking action.
Exercising emotional agility is a stance of empowerment: we lean into our emotions to better understand how we are impacted by whatever is currently going on for us. Practising emotional agility is actually working actively to process and regulate our emotions. After gathering the data, we make informed decisions and take actions that are aligned with our personal values.
So, instead of appearing to be emotionally reactive to situations presented to us, we pause and create some distance from our natural, normal and automatic reactions and then we respond in ways aligned with our personal values. We are more emotionally regulated when we are present and we recognise that we have self-agency and have choice.
Emotional Agility Applied: How to Change People-pleasing Tendencies
Social media has popularised the term “people-pleasing tendencies” and many of us probably can identify with this struggle. It can look like us facing difficulties saying no to people and sacrificing our well-being in the process. Many individuals experience burnout when they end up with a massive workload: they feel anxious about saying no to more tasks, projects or events while at the same time, feeling the urge to say yes to please the person with the request.
One of the ways of looking at “people-pleasing” is seeing it as stemming from fear of disappointing another. People-pleasing is actually a coping mechanism we may engage in to avoid that fear: we may end up agreeing to things that we believe we couldn’t decline or that we believe may displease and disappoint the person with the request.
Emotional agility could be an approach to lean into the fear of disappointing, or the anxiety of displeasing. Emotional agility can help us process and regulate the thoughts, stories or urges to please others. It can also help us step out of the automatic patterns we have been engaging in and help us to connect with our personal value.
Here is an example of a personal experience that I hope can illustrate how emotional agility could be applied to regulate people pleasing tendencies.
The Context
I did not know how to say no in my twenties. This resulted in an immense workload that I struggled to cope with. Even though I worked so hard, work just kept piling up. I lost sleep and my health deteriorated. I was falling sick more often but I was worried that I would not be able to finish my work if I took a sick day. Taking a vacation to rest and recharge only meant that I had a shorter amount of time to complete my workload – there was no relief.
Initially, I thought I was being a pleasant staff when I took in whatever work that was assigned to me; I wanted my superior to like me and to view me as a great performer. I however realised that work was constantly assigned to me. I tried to protest and defended against getting new work but my superior didn’t have anyone else to delegate the work to. I grew resentful and exhausted.
Emotional Agility in Practice: Showing Up with Mindfulness
One day, while having lunch on my own, I saw me. I met myself where I was at: I was not even enjoying the food I was eating and I was thinking of what I had to do next. Usually, I would have been judgemental of my experience and I would have had criticisms around being pathetic and weak but I was more curious that day. That day, I was willing to go deeper.
Emotional Agility in Practice: Stepping Out
Leaning into the emotions and looking beyond the surface
I leaned into my emotions and realised that there was something there beyond the “I’m stressed and burnt out.”
Dissatisfaction and disappointment
I discovered that I was dissatisfied with my work life, and I was disappointed that nobody was looking out for me. I had thoughts like: “Surely people could see that I am suffering. I’m sure my superior knew that I have too much on my plate. He should have helped me manage my workload.” I was also disappointed with myself: I was waiting to be rescued from a sub-par life and I was perhaps hustling for the wrong reasons.
Anxiety of dropping the ball and fear of being seen as incompetent
I understood that despite being tired, I was still pushing myself to deliver good quality work, and I was figuratively refusing to drop the ball. I realised that my anxiety about protecting my professionalism and quality of work had me going on overdrive. Perfectionism had come into the picture too and that fuelled anxiety about not being good enough.
Emotional Agility in Practice: Walk the Why
I was able to observe what my emotions, my thoughts, my urges were signalling. I understood that I care about professionalism and quality, and I also care about my own well-being. Professionalism, quality of work and my own well-being can exist in the same space – I just had to decide how.
Emotional Agility in Practice: Moving on
Over that lunch, I also realised that I had been waiting for my superior to show care for my well-being when at that point, he may not have known that my well-being was jeopardised. My thought loops around how he probably cared more about having work done than me were simply thoughts; I had not given myself a chance to verify or clarify those thoughts. I had not expressed my dissatisfaction nor discussed the impact of the workload on my well-being; I had only tried to decline work by saying I had a lot on my plate.
I understood that I could not wait around for others to take care of me, and I had to be the one. I understood that I could only be responsible for my own actions, and I had to take charge of my well-being. I cared about professionalism and quality of work and that meant that I had to be vulnerable and express my limitations as a staff with my level of competence. If I was not good enough, then everyone would be better off if I was given less so I could do a good job within my scope.
I had to accept that my performance may be rated poorly if I wasn’t overworking. I knew my job description and key performance indicators well. I had to make things sustainable for myself so I could continue to do a good enough job and have a good enough life. I should endeavour to live my life aligned with my own values: I wasn’t aiming for back-to-back promotions or stellar performance reviews. I knew my job description and key performance indicators well.
My fears, anxieties, dissatisfaction and disappointment were important data for me to choose how I would manage my workload and interact with my superior. They are not meant to be permanent experiences. When I took a deeper look to understand my emotions and stories and behaviours and processed them enough, I allowed myself to take actions that are aligned with our values. I wouldn’t be able to get rid of fears and anxieties, dissatisfaction and disappointment forever; I wouldn’t want them to completely disappear too because they are important data about how I am living my life. The difference is that I am getting more empowered to not let my emotions, thought loops or urges rule my life and I can act in a more emotionally agile manner when I live my life. I was also more emotionally regulated and I knew I was the agent of my life.
Summing Up
I hope this post has sufficiently discussed and explored what emotional agility is in relation to emotional regulation and well-being. I also hope that sharing my own experiences here could help you see how emotional agility could be applied and put into practice.
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