Editor’s Note: I’m a slave to impulse though thankfully less so as I age and mellow. But it still takes a huge effort for me (Alice says I’m not “type A”, I’m “type AAA”) to notice my emotions before I act upon them. I love this website in general but ever more when thoughts such as these are shared. Thanks, as always to www.dailygood.org, knowledge@wharton and Susan David, whose book I am downloading this morning.

Just like physical agility, emotional agility is important to overall health, well-being and successful relationships at work. Psychologist Susan David, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and author of the book, Emotional Agility, offers insights about the "critical skill set" needed to achieve emotional balance. She notes, "emotions help us not only to communicate with other people but also to ourselves. This is a critical aspect of my work and of the book itself. This idea that we can learn underneath our emotions, if we feel a sense of guilt, if we feel a sense of anger, there's often something that is instructive to us. Now, the very clear distinction here is that our emotions are data, not directions. We can learn from them, but we don't need to obey them or be dominated by them." (read more)

Be The Change

Take the time to truly feel and identify the emotions you are experiencing. Consider the emotions to be data rather than directions. What do they tell you about yourself or your circumstance? How do you choose to respond?