Internal Self Control – The Strong, Silent, Strategy for Stress

December 11th, 2005

Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. Saint Francis de Sales

Stress worms its way into the fabric of our lives and has costly or potentially costly effects. The increasing incidence and potency of stress is commonplace among today’s executives. Some are better at dealing with it than others; some are better at hiding it than others.

A typical scenario: Alex is a successful executive. He has great emotional control. At a recent board meeting, no one would suspect that he was raging inside….until he got home and did battle with his wife and teenagers. He went to sleep with a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach.

One of the assessments I use, the Attribute Index part of the TriMetrix™ package, has several attributes (out of the 80) that relate to how you handle stress. Internal self control is one of those attributes. Internal self control is the ability to be composed internally even in the face of stressful external circumstances; it is not letting those circumstances have a negative impact on internal emotions. This is distinguished from emotional control which is the ability to maintain an outward “even keel” regardless of what is happening internally (which could be in a raging mess).

When internal self control tests out as being lower than desired, my clients often ask me what they can do to improve. One of the first steps is to better understand the dynamics of internal self control. There are undeniable physiological reactions to personal triggers in our environment that are part of the fight or flight instinct. And there are two major paths to increase internal self control: One is to deactivate the triggers and the other is to increase emotional conditioning and stamina. They are both important.

We develop our own favorite triggers. For one person, it could be the guy in the next cubicle, or people being late for a meeting, or signs of disrespect. For another it could be the seating arrangement at the board table, etc. So the first step is to have a greater understanding of what is setting you off and then take steps to minimize the power it has over you. (How to do that is a topic for another article.)

Here are just some of many practices to increase emotional conditioning and stamina. As a start, pick at least 2 to incorporate in your daily/weekly practices.
1. Daily exercise (my belief is that this one has the most impact on internal self-control)
2. Practice playing the “observer” (step outside of yourself to see what is going on) so that you can do this when in a challenging circumstance.
3. Fresh air
4. Meditation
5. Use any one of the parts of the STRESS EMERGENCY KIT™* (Humor, Breathing, Do Something For Someone Else Quick, Gratitude)
6. Have a trusted advisor that you can talk to when things start to heat up.
7. Prepare yourself well when you are going into a situation you anticipate will be challenging.
8. If you are in a hot situation, find a way to temporarily remove yourself (go make a phone call, “find something,” etc.)

*Send a request by email and I will send you the Stress Emergency Kit article. (egagne@is-consulting.com)

Entry Filed under: Insights on OC