“Do one thing every day that scares you.” ‑Eleanor Roosevelt

Pushing the limits of your comfort zone is not a bad thing. Your heart rate goes up and your eyes dilate to enhance your vision. This is when you know you’re alive!

Your brain and body under stress will experience heightened sensory perception. Your senses become sharper to better assess the threat. Surprisingly, controlling this response is only one of several emotional intelligence strategies that can make you a better salesperson!

Control is an Important Emotional Intelligence Strategy

Short or long-​term pressure and emotional or physical stress can be debilitating. There are financial or social stressors and lifestyle anxieties, such as not enough sleep or too much caffeine. As with so many worries, it’s not the issue at hand, but how we choose to deal with it.

Controlling emotion is like strength training for the mind. Experiencing initial distress, then recovering over time makes us mentally stronger and able to handle more stress. The key is to take a mental step back. Then you can make your emotions work for you, not against you.

Jeff Haden, contributor to Inc​.com makes the case for reframing our emotional trauma.

Reframing a stressful situation requires us to use what the researchers call adaptive coping strategies, according to Haden. In this way, we see an unpleasant event as something inevitable and anticipated. This emotional intelligence strategy allows us to accept the situation and respond resiliently.

Seeing stress or trauma as inevitable will help us stay the course. Similarly, reframing stress as something we’ve chosen can reduce our body’s natural reactions. Best of all, the way we perceive and respond to stress can be learned.

Reframing Stress into Resilience

Cognitive reframing is a psychological technique that involves consciously changing the way we perceive or think about a particular problem. The goal is to shift perspective from negative or unhelpful to a more positive, constructive, or adaptive one. Showing resilience and strength under pressure builds character and demonstrates trustworthiness among our peers.

Chloe Martin, writing for Neuvana suggests several emotional intelligence strategies to reframe stress. Here are a few highlights:

• Positive Reappraisal — Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of a stressful situation, actively look for potential benefits or lessons you can learn from it.
• Focus on Controllables — Instead of dwelling on things you can't control, concentrate on actions you can take to manage a stressful situation.
• Challenge as Growth — See challenges as opportunities to develop new skills and resilience, rather than obstacles that cause distress.

Practice Mindfulness and Acceptance to Build Resilience

Developing healthy coping strategies like exercise, relaxation techniques and spending time with loved ones will reduce stress. Engaging in hobbies or volunteerism are other wholesome adaptive coping strategies.

Author Martin also suggests that practicing mindfulness will help us stay present in the moment. And learn to accept what we cannot change. Mindfulness helps us respond to stressors with a calmer and more composed mindset.

Another emotional intelligence strategy is to monitor our self-​talk. It’s important to pay attention to the words we use to describe a situation. Using more neutral or positive language to reframe the situation can help us maintain positivity.

Responding resiliently depends partly on how we frame a stressful event. Taking a deep breath so we can gather our thoughts and composure is a smart approach. Framing stress as something we have chosen creates a sense of agency and control.

Seeing stress as a signal for the opportunity to rise to a challenge is a healthy mindset. Granted, we’ll never be able to eliminate stressful events. However, with these emotional intelligence strategies we can better control how we manage our reactions.

Photo by Nacho Juárez on Pexels​.com.