An angry work situation

I had an experience last week at work which left me angry, hurt and welling in my own self doubt. The situation completely shot my self confidence and made me doubt my longevity in the business. It involved a difficult client who bought an advertising+event sponsorship package but then made demands outside of the written agreement, threatening to cancel everything should their demands not be met. They were bullies and essentially, I (as a representative for my company) was the one they picked on. The client said some really awful things to me, personally putting me down and criticising my job competency. He was the customer and I couldn't retaliate due to the fact that internal stakeholders within my company needed the client's money. What arguments I did shoot back, he didn't want to listen to and rudely cut me off. That left me even angrier and I've spent the last four days stewing over the whole ordeal.

After a dozen Zenhabits blog posts and countless conversations with my partner and my parents later, I realised that I have handled the situation pretty badly. Not badly in regards to the way I handled the customer (in the end, they were happy as they ended up getting their way), but how I in turn, let myself be so badly affected by the situation. I allowed my thoughts to spiral out of control, fueled by emotion which I should have just let sweep over me and pass. Rather, I was trapped in an endless cycle of negativity with the angry emotions fueling vengeful and distorted thoughts, which then stimulated more intense emotions... an endless loop which left me angrier and fearful of having to deal with this client in the future.

I blamed the client and the people within my company (who put me in that situation), for my bundle of negative thoughts and emotions. But I now realise - I am the one who is responsible.

Seeking answers, I stumbled across this amazing post titled "The ABCs of Remaining Cool in a Crazy World" from Zenhabits, written by guest blogger Albert Foong.

He states in the blog post -

"People and events have no control over us - except what we give them. If we buy into this falsehood, we would be no different from puppies; trained to bark and jump, and wag our tails at the slightest action from others."
(http://zenhabits.net/2008/02/the-abcs-of-remaining-cool-in-a-crazy-world/)

The statement (and the rest of his post) has been my biggest learning from this whole ordeal. It's my fault I allowed these people and events to trigger such a big response within me. I allowed it to waste my time and energy, pouring so much thought replaying the event in my head, and emotions on a person who means nothing to me.

This experience was a big lesson for me and I will be better equipped next time to deal with it. Understanding how I got to the crazy mental state I was in i.e. ABC - Antecedent, Belief and Consequence, I now know what to do when a similar scenario arises in the future. i.e. Adding in one more step - D: Disputing. Not disputing the other person, or the situation, but my own thoughts.

To control the emotions: Stop - Breathe - Leave
To control the thoughts: Remove the distortions which our emotions have caused. i.e. Overgeneralisation, Global Labeling, Filtering, Polarised thinking, Self blame, personalisation, mind reading, control fallacies.

With your thinking straight and your emotions levelled, I can then return to the situation with a cool head which would likely eliminate the tendency for a negative action i.e. the arguments, the panic, the snide remarks or the sulking.

What remains now is to take positive action and focusing on the goal at hand. Refocusing on what the goal is how to achieve it.

At the end of the day, I achieved the goal I was paid to do - I made money for the company. I realise in hindsight that in this instance, I needed to swallow my pride and do what was important - my job - and let the rest be water off a duck's back.