Emotional intelligence is something that many people struggle with immensely. Emotions can be an overpowering sensation that many people aren’t able to fend off. Most people make the majority of their decisions based on emotions and in most cases this leads to poor judgment and ultimately conflict or failure. Taking emotions out of the decision-making process on the quest to financial freedom can be extremely difficult especially because it has to do with one of the most emotion-driven topics people discuss, money. However, making decisions based on facts over emotions is the only way you can ensure that you make the most sound decisions at all times even if it’s hard to do. Separating your emotions from a decision can be difficult, but the fog of emotion weighs heavy on critical decision-making processes, so being able to master this skill is a necessity.
Recognizing emotion-based thinking
When you react to something emotionally, your decision is purely based on the first thing that pops into your head to do. This can lead to actions that have a high probability of leading to regret. Recognizing the emotion you feel when you receive information right away is a great way to help you pull the emotion away from the decision you’re about to make. For example, if you’re invested in a stock that has shown good fundamentals and one day it drops with the market, an emotional reaction to this news may be to pull out before you lose more money. Recognizing these emotions of fear and panic will allow you to separate them from your decision-making process and take more time to process the information to come to a rational decision. One who rationalizes this occurrence in the previous example would likely come to the conclusion that the market has ups and downs and that the stock has strong fundamentals so it’s best to keep your money invested. You may even feel like it would be wise to buy more because the market has provided a discount for an asset you know is strong! Do you see the difference emotion makes when coming to a decision? The difference is night and day. It is the difference between success and failure. While the majority just react, the wise take time to process and come to a decision always separating emotion from the equation.
Never get too high off a high or low off a low
The emotional swings of highs and lows can take a toll on your mind and body if you let it. This is especially true on the road to financial freedom. I know from my personal experience that I can have a really bad day that can suck the life out of me and follow it up with an amazing day that can make me feel invincible. Staying balanced somewhere in the middle can be extremely difficult especially if you’re not used to this emotional rollercoaster. The ups and downs take their toll fast if you let them, so it is important to stay as neutral as possible until something solidifies itself as fact rather than projection. For example, there have been multiple real estate transactions that I have worked on that looked like I would put under contract and then been rejected only to find out later the seller was still interested in working with us to the deal then being put under contract and falling through for other reasons. That process can take a gigantic toll on you mentally as it is extremely emotionally draining. The first thing your body feels when hearing news whether or not it is good or bad is emotion. Whether it is a shot of adrenaline or it feels like life has been sucked from your body, these extremes are hard to ignore. The best solution to this issue is to recognize these feelings when they come, understand the next steps of the process before you jump to conclusions, and then wait until whatever it is you’re receiving news on to solidify before letting your emotions release a little bit. Keeping your mind neutral will keep you from mentally burning yourself out or from focusing too heavily on one situation when there are others that need your attention.
Part of being human
Emotions are just a part of the human experience and they provide us with many joys and gifts in life. However, just because we always feel emotions doesn’t mean that we can’t control them or better yet keep ourselves from reacting to things purely based on them. A defining trait in any successful person is the ability to control emotions especially when making important decisions. For example, my team and I have a really good virtual assistant that has been cold calling for us. We have had issues with leads on our cold call lists for weeks and we have found better and cheaper solutions to our lead generation problem. We decided as a team that it would be best for our business to stop bleeding cash and fire our virtual assistant because her salary doesn’t justify the ROI to the company. While this was a difficult decision for us to make on a personal and human level since we’ve grown to care for this person as we’ve watched her grow and develop her skills over the last few months, we need to do what is best for our business and bottom line. This is just one of the many examples in business where being human and basing decisions off emotion can get in the way of being successful. Unfortunately, things like this are going to happen and they will test your willpower and ability to make sound decisions. Will you be able to make sound decisions even if your emotion sways you in another direction? Your future success depends on it.