Andrea Seydel Emotional Agility Book Summary
Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
INTRODUCTION
Are you ready to learn a counterintuitive approach to achieving your true potential. Are you driven by emotions like fear and anger, or do you try to avoid these feelings altogether? It's likely that learning how to become emotionally agile could be just what you need right now.*** All the emotions you feel, good or bad, are signals that will help you navigate through life. In Emotional Agility, you will learn how to gain perspective on your emotional responses and discover a new way to move forward and make decisions. These tips will not only help you today in your workplace and at home, but will also guide you toward the future you want.
The path to personal and professional fulfillment is rarely straight. Ask anyone who has achieved his or her biggest goals or whose relationships path lead in many different ways... and you’ll hear stories of many unexpected detours along the way.
WHAT HELPS US TO MANAGE THESE CHALLENGES or causes us to DERAIL?
Renowned psychologist, Susan David teaches us about science-based approach to help us navigate life's twists and turns USING- emotional agility.
GUESS WHAT: Did you know that no matter how intelligent or creative of a person you are, or what type of personality you have, it is how you navigate your inner world—their thoughts, feelings, and self-talk—that ultimately determines how successful you will become.
The way we respond to these internal experiences drives our actions, careers, relationships, happiness, health—everything that matters in our lives.
Do you experience things like self-doubt, shame, sadness, fear, or anger—that sometimes too easily steer you in the wrong direction. WE ARE NOT immune to stresses and setbacks. David shows us how anyone can thrive in an uncertain world by becoming more emotionally agile. whoever you are and whatever you face.
OVERVIEW
As humans, we are all prone to common hooks—things like self-doubt, shame, sadness, fear, or anger—that can too easily steer us in the wrong direction. Emotionally agile people are not immune to stresses and setbacks. This book is about loosening up, calming down, and living with more intention. Its about chosen how you'll respond to your emotional warning system. Between stimulus and response thee is a space. Are you rigid or agile?
The key difference is that they know how to adapt, aligning their actions with their values and making small but powerful changes that lead to a lifetime of growth. Emotional agility is not about ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts; it’s about holding them loosely, facing them courageously and compassionately, and then moving past them to bring the best of yourself forward.
This book guides us so we can thrive: she shares four key concepts that allow us to acknowledge uncomfortable experiences while simultaneously detaching from them, thereby allowing us to embrace our core values and adjust our actions so we can move where we truly want to go. THe ultimate goal of emotional agility is to keep a sense of challenge and growth alive and well throughout your life.
Emotional agility unfolds in four essential movements: Hooked- 1. Showing up- 2. Stepping out-3. Walking your why- 4. Moving on- Thriving
1. Showing up: means facing into you thoughts, emotions, and behaviours willingly, with curiosity and kindness. Is this accurate reflection of reality or harmful distortion.
2. Stepping out: After facing your thoughts and emotions, its about detaching from and observing them to see them for what they are- just thoughts, just emotions. Detached observations give a broader view like a chessboard vs. one piece on the board.
3. Walking your why: After you've uncluttered and calmed your mental processes and created space between thoughts and the thinker, you can begin to focus more on our core values, our most important goals. Recognizing, accepting and then distancing ourselves from scary, painful, disruptive emotional stuff. Connect thinking with feeling with long term values and apriations- help us find new and better ways of getting there.
4. Moving On:
KEY LEARNING
1. Accept emotions as signals that can help you navigate through life: "big boys don't cry" As humans we are capable of fear, joy, sadness, guilt, contempt, disappointment etc. Why do "negative emotions exist? Fear for example, warning. Negative emotions are not a problem- rejecting their existence and considering them negative is at the problem. Bottom line we need to truly feel our emotions and become agile: Be present and feel emotions, step back and create distance, take action bases on your values and goals, let go accept your decision and move on.
2. Get unstuck from self-defeating stories and differential fear from gut feelings: Gut feelings problem-our emotions are not always reliable. Ups and downs of life, we start to collect old self-defeating stories we replay when we need their comfort. "I am terrible at writing" We need to differential a gut feeling from an automatic response based on past experiences rooted in fear. Apply the four steps to a recent stressful situation where there was potential fear: 1. Take a moment "be present"notice if this situation triggers a memory or past expereince. 2. Step back and see that in reality. 3. Now just feel then decide to simply express the emotion constructively. 4. Move on. Following the be present, step back, take action, and move on steps will help you to differentiate gut feeling from fear, and gain clarity.
3. Move from mindlessness to mindfulness, and gain distance between the thinking and the thought: Many of us go about our days mindlessly. we are just so busy and focused on upcoming tasks. Take time to reconnect to the present and gain distance from our inner chatterbox. Tips to be more mindful: Clear your mind and just breathe, choose an object to focus on, connect to your senses, find music you enjoy. Strong emotions such as sadness or fear make it harder to "gain distance" Bringing yourself back to the moment to step back from your emotion and view it compassionately and curiously.
4. Take actions based on your values to break bad habits and more towards your biggest goals: Do you find yourself "winging it?" Or going with the flow. Problem is it may not be congruent with your true purpose and personal happiness. Social contagion influences us too. Take some time to think about your core values and personal goals: What really matters to you in lie? What situation make you feel good? What kind of relationship would you like to have? If your life became a film, what would it be about? NOW notice if your daily actions support your values and move you closer towards your goals. Reconnect to those things that truly matter to you. Define your own version of success and let go of social comparison.
5. Move by tweaking your behaviours in the preset to serve your future: Tweak your mindset, your motivation and your habits. Make small changes that help you now and in your future. Small changes to your beliefs, some changes to your actions that fall in line with your values and goals, and small changes to your habits.
6. Be courageous, and find a balance between comfort and challenge: Find a happy medium between being too comfortable and being over-challenged. We all stick to familiar= Boredom, self-doubt, low mood. Certain level of challenge propels us forward and offers creative tension and expansion. Ask yourself: Will this lead me towards becoming the per3son I want to be? Do I enjoy what i am doing? Can this pursuit really be a success? The key is to pursue challenge that serve you now and in the future. Walk way from things not fulfilling your purpose anymore.
REFLECTION
How can you embrace your emotions and allow them to guide you?
How can you separate thoughts from facts and gain new perspective?
How have mindless behaviours blocked your progress in the past and how will using emotional agility to help you?
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