It's just emotions taking me over...

It's Monday morning and it's cold. I'm waking up early for work after a tiring and emotional weekend. The last thing I wanted to do, was to make the long, early morning journey to work, through the freezing cold English weather. Yes, you have it! I had the Monday morning blues. Or did I? 

Arguably, it's the Monday morning blues, but to be fair, it could be any morning. But what made the morning harder, was waking up early for work!! What we really have here, is a case of 'led by emotions'. It was easy for me to feel frustrated waking up Monday morning and allow that to impinge on the rest of my day. Walk into work and ignore the people that I see. Have a grumpy look on my face. Snap at anybody who dares to talk to me. But, just because I feel frustrated in response to a situation or a moment, does that really need to lead my day? This Monday morning in particular, I was able to identify my negative impulse and opted not to let it determine how the rest of my day turned out. I hate the cold! "Fact" - but I also enjoy having positive conversations with people. I hate waking up early!  "Fact" - but I enjoy providing engaging lessons for the children that I teach. 

I don't know about you, but for me I can fail to lead my emotions and I will often allow my emotions to lead me astray. Sadly, I then live out that frustration in situations where I could experience happiness. So here are a few things I have decided to do to help me get out of that thinking.

1. Be thankful - having a grateful mindset challenges and changes the perspective that you have. See life through thankful eyes. If it helps, make a list of what you are thankful for.

2. Encourage others - Again this could just be me, but I can get stuck in my emotions. Encouraging others around me, helps me to get unstuck, because then I am not just focussing on me.

3. Identify your emotion, why it exists and the situation you are in - I've added this because it's important not to overlook how you are feeling. Although I don't think we should live in an emotion, I think we should deal with the emotion. Also, once we know why the emotion exists, we can strategise or move on a lot quicker. Sometimes I'm annoyed because I'm just hungry! True stories!!

I hope these points help - let me know how you find leading your emotions in the comments section below :)