Turning bad experiences into valuable lessons

We were discussing a certain consulting method, in short: creating solutions by starting out from bad client experiences. Identifying emotional hiccups is quite easy as negative emotions are stored quite well in the brain. A customer will recall those moments in more detail than a smooth process with no interferences. Once you have a negative incidence, solutions are created to change the process and reduce bad client experiences.

You can use this technique also for our life. Think for a moment: what can you remember from last week?

Most likely, all situations coming to your mind will be connected to emotions – quite often negative emotions. And this is a good entry point, to learn something new about yourself. Take some time and find out what created the bad emotion. What influenced your mood so intensively that you can recall it even today? What did you believe about yourself in that moment?

This technique is used in coaching, too. It is about creating awareness. Awareness about the underlying story that is happening while your emotions where triggered. And once you understand the underlying story, you can actively choose to stay in your mindset or change your thoughts and self-belief.

For instance, if you are triggered by words or behaviour of your colleague, your reaction says more about yourself than about your colleagues’ behaviour. It is very likely that your colleague didn’t even want to trigger you. He/she just did what they did. But it is your self-talk that is triggered, e.g. by commenting on how stupid that person is. It is very likely, that your are the one, having the need of proofing not to be stupid.

In essence, every moment you are experiencing an intense negative emotion at work, you can use the awareness that is created by that incident to learn more about yourself and grow inwardly.