4. How to take embarrassment as a signal and use it to not do the thing again.
When you’re feeling embarrassment and shame, sometimes its because you’re doing something that has a negative consequence. Sometimes its not the feeling that you need to change! When you want to use an emotion to change things, its important to use it as a signal.
When you start feeling embarrassment about this particular thing, think to yourself “Wait!” Pause. Sharpen your senses. Look around. Come up with a game plan. You are going to make changes, so you need to know what you are going to do! Make your best guess – in an ideal world, how would I respond to this thing I am reacting to? Try to do that.
Check in with yourself to see what your results are. Does the new thing you’re trying make the situation better? Will you see incremental progress instantly, or is it something you need to try a few times for it to start working? Do you expect it to work instantly? Build as good a model of it ahead of time as you can, and then test it. Know that you are running an experiment, and that if it doesn’t work, you will take this as data, and you will try something else if it doesn’t work. Don’t give up. Don’t just react. Take conscious control of your life, and your responses. You have many options. These are just a few:
- Try your own ideas.
- Read books for more ideas.
- Ask friends.
- Contact us at Positive Vector.
I used to feel embarrassed when someone walked into the room and I thought I should be doing work and was instead fooling around. I didn’t want to be not feeling embarrassed, I wanted to be getting work done! So now when that happens, I take a deep breath, and I refocus. I use what I’ve learned from my meditation practice. When I notice that my mind has drifted, I bring it back to what I want to do, without judgement, just like I would if I was meditating on my breath. It works remarkably well, much better than shaming myself. Sometimes embarrassment wakes me up from my drifting thoughts and reminds me that I’m not doing what I want to be doing. When this happens, I use this wonderful stimulus of embarrassment to help me do what I want to be doing. It doesn’t always work, I’m human, but it sure is a big improvement. I am much more productive than I used to be.
Click here to return to How to Deal with Embarrassment.
- Shannon Friedman
Set your passion free.
[...] To take embarrassment as a signal and use it to not do the thing again! [...]