The ten action Signals

With the six steps alone, you can change most emotions. But in order to keep yourself from even having to use the six steps, you may find it useful to have a conscious understanding of what positive message each of your major emotions or Action Signals is trying to give you. In the next couple of pages, I'll share with you the ten primary emotions most people try to avoid but which you will instead use to drive yourself to action. Reading this list of Action Signals won't give you instant mastery of your emotions. You've got to use these distinctions consistently in order to reap their benefits. I suggest that you reread this section several times, underlining the areas that are especially significant for you, and then write down the Action Signals on a 3 x 5 card you can carry with you everywhere, reminding yourself of the meaning the emotion really has for you and what action you can take to utilize it. Attach one of these little cards to the sun visor in your car, not only so you can review it throughout the day, but so if you get stuck in traffic and begin to " boil over in rage, " you'll be able to pull out the card and remind yourself of the positive nature of the messages you're receiving.

Let's begin with the most basic call to action, the emotion of...

1. DISCOMFORT. Uncomfortable emotions don't have a tremendous amount of intensity, but they do bother us and create the nagging sensation that things are not quite right.

The Message:

Boredom, impatience, unease, distress, or mild embarrassment are all sending you a message that something is not quite right. Maybe the way you're perceiving things is off, or the actions you're takingare not producing the results you want.

The Solution:

Dealing with emotions of discomfort is simple:

1) Use the skills you've already learned in this book to change your state;

Clarify what you do want; and

Refine your actions. Try a slightly different approach and see if you can't immediately change the way you're feeling about the situation and/or change the quality of results you're producing.

Like all emotions, if not dealt with, uncomfortable feelings will intensify. Discomfort is somewhat painful, but the anticipation of possible emotional pain is much more intense than the discomfort you might be feeling in the moment. You and I need to remember that our imagination can make things ten times more intense than anything we could ever experience in real life. In fact, there's a saying in chess and in martial arts: " The threat of attack is greater than the attack itself." When we begin to

anticipate pain, especially intense levels of it, often we begin to develop the Action Signal of...

2. FEAR. Fearful emotions include everything from low levels of concern and apprehension to intense worry, anxiety, fright, and even terror. Fear serves a purpose, and its message is simple.

The Message:

Fear is simply the anticipation that something that's going to happen soon needs to be prepared for. In the words of the Boy Scout motto, " Be prepared." We need either to prepare to cope with the situation, or to do something to change it. The tragedy is that most people either try to deny their fear, or they wallow in it. Neither of these approaches is respecting the message that fear is trying to deliver, so it will continue to pursue you as it tries to get its message across. You don't want to surrender to fear and amplify it by starting to think of the worst that could happen, nor do you want to pretend it's not there.

The Solution:

Review what you were feeling fearful about and evaluate what you must do to prepare yourself mentally. Figure out what actions you need to take to deal with the situation in the best possible way. Sometimes we've done all the preparation we could for something; there's nothing else we can do—but we still sit around in fear. This is the point when you must use the antidote to fear: you must make a decision to have faith, knowing you've done all you can to prepare for whatever you're fearing, and that most fears in life rarely come to fruition. If they do, you may experience...

3. HURT. If there's any one emotion that seems to dominate human relationships, both personal and professional, it's the emotion of hurt. Feelings of hurt are usually generated by a sense of loss. When people are hurt, they often lash out at others. We need to hear the real message hurt gives us.

The Message:

The message the hurt signal gives us is that we have an expectation that has not been met. Many times this feeling arises when we've expected somebody to keep their word and they didn't (even if you didn't tell them your expectation that, for example, they not share with someone else what you talked with them about). In this case, you feel a loss of intimacy with this person, maybe a loss of trust. That sense of loss is what creates the feeling of hurt.

The Solution:

1) Realize that in reality you may not have lost anything. Maybe what you need to lose is the false perception that this person is trying to wound or hurt you. Maybe they really don't realize the impact of their actions on your life.

2) Secondly, take a moment and reevaluate the situation. Ask yourself, " Is there really loss here? Or am I judging this situation too soon, or too harshly? "

3) A third solution that can help you get out of a sense of hurt is to elegantly and appropriately communicate your feeling of loss to the person involved. Tell them, " The other day when X-Y-Z happened, I misinterpreted that to mean that you didn't care, and I have a sense of loss. Can you clarify for me what really happened? " Simply by changing your communication style and clarifying what's really going on, you will often find that hurt disappears in a matter of moments.

However, if hurt is not dealt with, it often becomes amplified and turns into...

4. ANGER. Angry emotions include everything from being mildly irritated to being angry, resentful, furious, or even enraged.

The Message:

The message of anger is that an important rule or standard that you hold for your life has been violated by someone else, or maybe even by you. (We'll talk more about this in Chapter 16 on rules.) When you get the message of anger, you need to understand that you can literally change this emotion in a moment.

The Solution:

1) Realize that you may have misinterpreted the situation completely, that your anger about this person breaking your rules may be based on the fact that they don't know what's most important to you (even though you believe they should).

2) Realize that even if a person did violate one of your standards, your rules are not necessarily the " right" rules, even though you feel as strongly as you do about them.

3) Ask yourself a more empowering question like " In the long run, is it true that this person really cares about me? " Interrupt the anger by asking yourself, " What can I learn from this? How can I communicate the importance of these standards I hold for myself to this person in a way that causes them to want to help me, and not violate my standards again in the future? "

For example, if you're angry, change your perception—maybe this person really didn't know your rules. Or change your procedure—maybe you didn't effectively communicate your real needs. Or change your behavior—tell people up front, for example, " Hey, this is private. Please promise me you won't share this with anybody; it's really important to me." For many people, consistent anger, or the failure to be able to meet their own standards and rules, leads to...

5. FRUSTRATION. Frustration can come from many avenues. Any time we feel like we're surrounded by roadblocks in our lives, where we are continuously putting out effort but not receiving rewards, we tend to feel the emotion of frustration.

The Message: \

The message of frustration is an exciting signal. It means that your brain believes you could be doing better than you currently are. Frustration is very different from disappointment, which is the feeling

that there's something you want in your life but you'll never get it. By contrast, frustration is a very positive sign. It means that the solution to your problem is within range, but what you're currently doing isn't working, and you need to change your approach in order to achieve your goal. It's a signal for you to become more flexible! How do you deal with frustration?

The Solution:

1) Realize that frustration is your friend, and brainstorm new ways to get a result. How can you flex your approach?

2) Get some input on how to deal with the situation. Find a role model, someone who has found a way to get what you want. Ask them for input on how you might more effectively produce your desired

result.

3) Get fascinated by what you can learn that could help you handle this challenge not only today, but in the future, in a way that consumes very little time or energy and actually creates joy. Much more devastating than frustration, however, is the emotion of...

6. DISAPPOINTMENT. Disappointment can be a very destructive emotion if you don't deal with it quickly. Disappointment is the devastating feeling of being " let down" or that you're going to miss out on something forever. Anything that makes you feel sad or defeated as a result of expecting more than you get is disappointing.

The Message:

The message disappointment offers you is that an expectation you have had—a goal you were really going for—is probably not going to happen, so it's time to change your expectations to make them more appropriate for this situation and take action to set and achieve a new goal immediately. And that is the solution.

The Solution:

1) Immediately figure out something you can learn from this situation that could help you in the future to achieve the very thing you were after in the first place.

2) Set a new goal, something that will be even more inspiring, and something you can make immediate progress toward.

3) Realize that you may be judging too soon. Often the things you're disappointed about are only temporary challenges, very much like in the story of Billy Joel in Chapter 2. As I've said, you and I need to remember that God's delays are not God's denials. You may just be in what I call " lag time." People often set themselves up for disappointment by having completely unrealistic expectations. If you go out today and plant a seed, you can't go back tomorrow and expect to see a tree.

4) A fourth major solution to dealing with disappointment is to realize that a situation isn't over yet, and develop more patience. Completely reevaluate what you truly want, and begin to develop an even more effective plan for achieving it.

5) The most powerful antidote to the emotion of disappointment is cultivating an attitude of positive expectancy about what will happen in the future, regardless of what has occurred in the past. The ultimate disappointment that we can experience is usually expressed as the emotion of...

7. GUILT. The emotions of guilt, regret, and remorse are among the emotions human beings do most to avoid in life, and this is valuable. They are painful emotions for us to experience, but they, too, serve a valuable function, one which becomes apparent once we hear the message.

The Message:

Guilt tells you that you have violated one of your own highest standards, and that you must do something immediately to ensure that you're not going to violate that standard again in the future. If you recall, in Chapter 6 I said that leverage is accessed when someone begins to link pain to something. With enough pain linked to a behavior, that person will eventually change it, and the strongest leverage is the pain we can give ourselves. Guilt is the ultimate leverage for many people in changing a behavior. However, some people try to deal with their guilt by denying and suppressing it. Unfortunately, this rarely works. Guilt does not go away; it only comes back stronger.

The other extreme is to surrender to and wallow in guilt, where we begin to just accept the pain and experience learned helplessness. This is not the purpose of guilt. It's designed, again, to drive us to action to create a change. People tail to understand this and often feel so remorseful about something they once did that they allow themselves to feel inferior for the rest of their lives! That is not the message of guilt. It's there to make sure you either avoid behaviors out of your certainty that they'll lead to guilt, or, if you've already violated your standard, it's there to induce enough pain within you to get yourself to recommit to a higher standard once again. Once you address your old behavior that you feel guilty about, though, and you're sincere and consistent, then move on.

The Solution:

1) Acknowledge that you have, in fact, violated a critical standard you hold for yourself.

2) Absolutely commit yourself to making sure this behavior will never happen again in the future. Rehearse in your mind how, if you could live it again, you could deal with the same situation you feel

guilty about in a way that is consistent with your own highest personal standards. As you commit beyond a shadow of a doubt that you'll never allow the behavior to occur again, you have the right to let go of the guilt. Guilt has then served its purpose to drive you to hold a higher standard in the future. Utilize it; don't wallow in it! Some people manage to beat themselves up mentally and emotionally because they are constantly failing to meet standards that they hold for themselves in virtually every area of life. As a result, most of these people experience a feeling of...

8. INADEQUACY. This feeling of unworthiness occurs anytime we feel we can't do something we should be able to do. The challenge, of course, is that often we have a completely unfair rule for determining whether we're inadequate or not. First, understand the message inadequacy is

giving you.

The Message:

The message is that you don't presently have a level of skill necessary for the task at hand. It's telling you that you need more information, understanding, strategies, tools or confidence.

The Solution:

1) Simply ask yourself, " Is this really an appropriate emotion for me to feel in this situation? Am I really inadequate, or do I have to change the way I'm perceiving things? " Maybe you've convinced yourself that in order to feel adequate, you have to go out on the dance floor and outdo Michael Jackson. This is probably an inappropriate perception.

If your feeling is justified, the message of inadequacy is that you need to find a way to do something better than you've done it before. The solution in this case is also obvious:

2) Whenever you feel inadequate, appreciate the encouragement to improve. Remind yourself that you're not " perfect, " and that you don't need to be. With this realization, you can begin to feel adequate the moment you decide to commit yourself to CANI! ™—constant and never-ending improvement in this area.

3) Find a role model—someone who's effective in the area in which you feel inadequate—and get some coaching from them. Just the process of deciding to master this area of your life and making even the

smallest amount of progress will turn a person who's inadequate into a person who's learning. This emotion is critical, because when someone feels inadequate, they tend to tall into the trap of learned helplessness, and they begin to see the problem as being a permanent one with themselves. There's no greater lie you could tell yourself. You're not inadequate. You may be untrained or unskilled in a particular area, but you're not inadequate. The capability for greatness in anything is within you even now.

When we begin to feel that problems are permanent or pervasive orwe have more things to deal with than we can possibly imagine, we tend to succumb to the emotions of...

9. OVERLOAD OR OVERWHEIM. Grief, depression, and helplessness are merely expressions of feeling overloaded or overwhelmed. Grief happens when you feel like there is no empowering meaning for something that has happened, or that your life is being negatively impacted by people, events, or forces that are outside your control. People in this state become overwhelmed and often begin to feel that nothing can change the situation, that the problem is too big—it's permanent, pervasive, and personal. People go into these emotional states whenever they perceive their world in a way that makes them feel like there's more going on than they can possibly deal with, i.e., the pace, amount, or intensity of sensations seems overwhelming.

The Message:

The message of being overwhelmed is that you need to reevaluate what's most important to you in this situation. The reason you're overloaded is that you're trying to deal with too many things at once, and you're trying to change everything overnight. The feeling of being overloaded or overwhelmed disrupts and destroys more people's lives than just about any other emotion.

The Solution:

1) Decide, out of all the things you're dealing with in your life, what the absolute, most important thing is for you to focus on.

2) Now write down all the things that are most important for you to accomplish and put them in an order of priority. Just putting them down on paper will allow you to begin to feel a sense of control over what's going on.

3) Tackle the first thing on your list, and continue to take action until you've mastered it. As soon as you've mastered one particular area, you'll begin to develop momentum. Your brain will begin to realize that you are in control and you are not overloaded, overwhelmed, or depressed, that the problem is not permanent, and that you can always come up with a solution.

4) When you feel that it's appropriate to start letting go of an overwhelming emotion like grief, start focusing on what you can control and realize that there must be some empowering meaning to it all, even though you can't comprehend it yet. Our self-esteem is often tied to our ability to control our environments. When we create an environment inside our minds that has too many intense and simultaneous demands upon us, of course we'll feel overloaded. But we also have the power to change this by focusing on what we can control and dealing with it a step at a time. Probably the emotion that most people fear the most, however, is that feeling of disconnection, also known as...

10. LONELINESS. Anything that makes us feel alone, apart, or separate from others belongs in this category. Have you ever felt really lonely? I don't think there's anybody alive who hasn't.

The Message:

The message of loneliness is that you need a connection with people. But what does the message mean? People often assume it means a sexual connection, or instant intimacy. Then they feel frustrated, because even when they do have intimacy, they still feel lonely.

The Solution:

1) The solution to loneliness is to realize that you can reach out and make a connection immediately and end the loneliness. There are caring people everywhere.

2) Identify what kind of connection you do need. Do you need an intimate connection? Maybe you just need some basic friendship, or someone to listen to you or to laugh or talk with. You simply have to identify what your true needs are.

3) Remind yourself that what's great about being lonely is that it means, " I really care about people, and I love to be with them. I need to find out what kind of connection I need with somebody right now,

and then take an action immediately to make that happen."

4) Then, take immediate action to reach out and connect with someone.

So there's your list of the ten Action Signals. As you can see, every one of these emotions is offering you empowering messages and a call to change either your false and disempowering perceptions or your inappropriate procedures, that is, your communication style or actions. To fully utilize this list, remember to review it several times, and with each repetition, look for and underline the positive messages that each signal is giving you, as well as the solutions you can use in the future. Almost all " negative" emotions have their basis in these ten categories or are some hybrid of them. But you can deal with any emotion in the way we discussed earlier: by going through the six steps, getting curious, and discovering the empowering meaning it's offering you.

" We must cultivate our garden."

VOLTAIRE

Think of your mind, your emotions, and your spirit as the ultimate garden. The way to ensure a bountiful, nourishing harvest is to plant seeds like love, warmth, and appreciation, instead of seeds like disappointment, anger, and fear. Begin to think of those Action Signals as weeds in your garden. A weed is a call to action, isn't it? It says, " You've got to do something; you've got to pull this out to make room for better, healthier plants to grow." Keep cultivating the kinds of plants you want, and pull the weeds as soon as you notice them.

Let me offer you ten emotional seeds you can plant in your garden. If you nurture these seeds by focusing on feeling what you want to feel every day, you will hold yourself to a standard of greatness. These seeds create a life that flourishes and fulfills its highest potential. Let's explore them briefly now, and realize that each of these emotions represents an antidote to any of the " negative" emotions you may have been feeling previously.