Coaching Blog
The Coaching Group Of Switzerland

By Susan Begeman Steiner

Honoring emotions is an important element in achieving Emotional Intelligence. And our moods – both “good” and “bad” -- are an important part of our emotional being. 

Have you noticed that things go more smoothly when you are in the mood to do them? Traffic lights change to green and you find a great parking place when you’re in a good mood. And when you’re in a bad mood, seems like almost everything goes wrong.

Moods come and go in their own timing, so practically speaking, how can you capitalize on the good moods and mitigate the bad moods?

For example, it isn’t always possible to be in the mood to do something you must do. Sometimes you just have do it anyway. So the question becomes, how can you get yourself in the mood to enjoy what you’re going to do? Here are 3 keys that can help:

1. Design rituals

I have a goal of doing yoga every morning. Sometimes I’m not in the mood. To help me start my stretches, I have a ritual. I spread out my yoga mat and put on music that I like. The music is soothing and calming and it reminds me of how good the yoga stretches feel. Pretty soon I find myself happily stretching.

Another simple example of a ritual is one you can do as you start a new project. Clear off your desk and get yourself a cup of coffee. With a clean desk and a cup of coffee, you can imagine yourself making a good start on your new project.

2. Say affirmations

An affirmation is an encouraging phrase that you repeat to yourself. As humans we always have affirmations running -- often the affirmations are not very affirming. So why not try some affirmations that are actually encouraging to you and can help get you in the right mood? You can even combine rituals with affirmations. Here are a few examples of affirmations:

• “This will be fun. I love to [something about the task that you really do like to do].”

• “I am learning a lot!”

• “It is good to enjoy life and take chances.”

3. See the bigger picture

When you need to do something that you are not in the mood to do, take a moment to think about why you might to do it. Ask yourself what you will get ultimately if you do it. Sometimes seeing the big-picture value can make the task itself more appealing to do.

Enjoy your life and your moods. Allow your emotions to enrich your experience of life, but don’t let them stop you from doing things you need to do.

Comment from Heinz Müller:  We all face from time to time challenging situations at work or in private whereby we get stuck and don’t see how we can overcome/solve the problem. This can cause worry and other stress. In these cases mental coaching can support you by finding the solution, i.e. the right attitude to do so.

As the Dalai Lama once said, “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.“

In other words, worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its possibilities.

How would your life be different if you stopped worrying and started truly doing what you are capable of doing? Let today be the day you free yourself from worthless worry, seize the possibilities and take effective action on things you can change.

Make a stand. Be proactive. Stop simply worrying about:

1. The challenges you face. Challenges are not here to worry about; they are here to help you grow.

Challenges are what make life interesting, and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. Many of history’s greatest accomplishments were responses to difficult challenges. Many of your own greatest advances have been in response to challenging circumstances. Each of life’s challenges is a test that helps you notice and understand your weaknesses, thus enabling you to transform these weaknesses into strengths.

2. Less than ideal conditions you can’t control. There is no good reason to deny yourself the opportunity to do something extraordinary. Life is about making a difference, and you will never run out of ways to do that.

Whatever has happened, whatever others say, whatever the state may be, you still have the ability to thrive. Life is what you choose to make it. You have unlimited power over your mind, not external objects and events. Realize this and you will find the source of strength you need to move mountains, Read How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie.

 3. The reasons it might not work. Your doubts are little enemies living in your mind that make you lose battles you are capable of winning. They stir fear into your consciousness and keep you wishing instead of DOING. In other words, they disrupt necessary action.
An idea or a wish is a good place to start, but then you have to get off your butt, face your doubts and make things happen. You have to pick up the pen and paper and write your own story.

Don’t let your doubts get the best of you. While intention is the seed of success, action is the water that nourishes the seed. Your actions must reflect your goals in order to achieve something worthwhile in this world.

4. Everyone else’s dreams. Start worrying about your own dreams. They are unique and undeniably yours for a reason. They are showing you and, at the same time compelling you, to make the most of your life. It is not selfish to be your very best. What’s selfish is to let your enormous potential go unrealized.

What have you always wanted to know, always wanted to do and always wanted to be? It is never too late to honestly answer that question. The answer to that question is your own truly beautiful and unique gift to the world. Because when you fulfill your greatest

possibilities, you raise the whole world up with you. Read A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle.

5. Love that isn’t true. The true kind of love involves attention, awareness, discipline, effort and being able to truly care about someone and sacrifice for them, continuously, in countless petty little unsexy ways, every day. You put your arms around them and love them regardless, even when they are not so lovable. And of course they do the same for you.

This kind of love has little to do with falling. It’s a long climb up the rocky face of a mountain, hard work that most people are too selfish or too scared to bother with.

If you want to know what a truly healthy relationship is, it is one where both people wake up every morning and say, “This is worth it. You are worth it. I choose to be with you.“ Read The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

6. Other people’s temper tantrums. Losing your temper with people who have already lost theirs does not accomplish anything, but only sets you upon a path of foolishness and frustration.

When you maintain enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when another person is in a temper tantrum, you will win in the end. Because it’s not the one who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is the one who has perhaps spoken only one word: “Goodbye.“

7. More and more work that ONLY makes money. Forget about the easy street or fast lane mentalities. If you really want to do something wonderful with your life, harness the power of the ideas and efforts that move you. Honor your instincts. Trust your heart and true wealth will come to you.

As Anthony Robbins once said, “Passion is the genesis of genius.“ Enthusiasm is the mother of all productive work; without it rarely does something great ever transpire. When you connect with your work, you always strive to become the best you can be. And as you gradually become better and better, everything around you becomes better, too.

Bottom Line: The more passion you have for your work, the more value you will create through it. And value is ultimately what people are willing to pay a premium for.

 Marc and Angel Chernoff wrote 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently

Comment by Suzie Doscher: Effective team building requires the soft skills offered under the heading EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE. In the article below you will see how new studies are confirming this. Increasing the level of Emotional Intelligence in the workplace brings a healthier work environment. Leaders and employees alike gain the skills that allow them to express their needs more clearly. When the company knows what the teams need to function more smoothly, they know what has to be changed or offered.

Article by Kristian Sjøgren

It is not a big workload that causes depression at work. An unfair boss and an unfair work environment are what really bring employees down, new study shows.

The development of workplace depression has surprisingly little to do with work pressure. The sense of being treated unfairly by the boss, on the other hand, is closely associated with the risk of becoming depressed. 
A huge pile of unfinished work is not the main reason why employees become depressed, concludes an extensive new Danish study.

Surprisingly, the study indicates that a heavy workload has no effect on whether or not employees become depressed.
Instead, it is the work environment and the feeling of being treated unfairly by the management that has the greatest effect on an employee’s mood.

”We may have a tendency to associate depression and stress with work pressure and workload; however, our study shows that the workload actually has no effect on workplace depression,” says one of the researchers behind the new study, psychologist Matias Brødsgaard Grynderup, PhD, of the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University.

”This suggests that the risk of workplace depression cannot be minimised by changing the workload. Other factors are involved, and it is these factors that we should focus on in the future.”

The findings were recently published in three articles in the scientific journalsOccupational and Environmental Medicine, Psychoneuroendocrinology and The Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health.

A study of 4,500 public employeesThe researchers handed out questionnaires to 4,500 public employees at Danish schools, hospitals, nurseries, offices, etc. They also conducted personal interviews with most of the participants to determine who suffered from clinical depression.

Our results actually show that high cortisol levels are associated with a low risk of developing depression. This means that we may be able to use cortisol measurements as an indicator of the risk of developing depression.
Matias Brødsgaard Grynderup
They also examined the concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol in the participants’ saliva.

From the questionnaires, the researchers could determine the sense of justice that the employees felt in their workplaces. The feeling of justice in this context includes the feeling of being heard by one’s manager and the feeling of everyone being treated on equal terms in the workplace.

Asked why people still tend to associate work pressure with depression, Grynderup says:

“When high levels of work pressure and depression appear to be linked in people’s consciousness, it is not because a heavy workload increases the risk of depression. Or that’s not what we found in our study. Instead, depression can make work assignments appear insurmountable, even though the depression was not caused by the workload.”

High cortisol levels do not cause depressionThe study also looked at the link between cortisol levels and the risk of developing depression.

Previous studies have indicated a link between work pressure, high cortisol levels and the risk of developing clinical depression. The new study, however, points in the opposite direction:

FactsThe Danish study differs from similar international studies in that the findings are not based on the individual’s experience of the work environment, but rather on the aggregate experience of the healthy employees in a given work department.

In this way, the results are not affected by depressed employees who, as a result of their illness, often have a negatively tainted experience of their work environment.


“Our results actually show that high cortisol levels are associated with a low risk of developing depression. This means that we may be able to use cortisol measurements as an indicator of the risk of developing depression.”

How to avoid workplace depressionThe new findings can be used as a guide for future focus areas when stress and depression become a part of the workplace.

The study suggests that looking at the employees’ own assessment of the work environment and possible changes to the work environment has a much better preventive effect on depression than reducing the workload.

”When the employees’ sense of justice plays such a central role in minimising the risk of depression, this is probably the area that the preventive work should focus on,” says Grynderup.

“I recommend a management style in which there is a clearly expressed wish to treat employees properly – combined with a transparent organisational structure.”

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