SOARing with CEEK: Session 7, Moods, Emotions, and Trust

CEEK continues with our cohort of SOAR leaders. Based on the book, Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence: How Extraordinary Leaders Build Relationships, Shape Culture and Drive Breakthrough Results by Chalmers Brothers and Vinay Kumar, Jennifer Hughes is guiding 12 industry leaders on a journey of self-discovery. Our participants are using the power of language and conversations as primary tools to address concerns and achieve their desired results at work and in their personal lives.

Our final session asked participants to become a more powerful observers of the way moods, emotions, and trust impact their ability to see new possibilities and take effective action, personally, and professionally; work productively, with and through others; create and sustain mutually-beneficial relationships, at home and work; establish and maintain a healthy public identity; and achieve and sustain emotional and physical health.

We’ll focus on moods here. If you are interested in learning more about trust, check our website for availability of our next cohort!

Moods, Emotions, Feelings: Aren’t these the same thing?
Nope. Feelings are an awareness by your body. They are reactions to what’s around you. Emotions are also mental reactions. These are strong, short-term predispositions, triggered by external events. Once the event has passed, the emotion passes and you return to your baseline mood. Moods are a prevailing attitude—a distinctive atmosphere or context that already exists regardless of the events around it. You don’t have moods, they have you. You are always in one mood or another and that mood is always serving as a predisposition for Action.

Why are we talking about this?
We don’t include this in the program to train you as psychologists or therapists—you already have a day job! Moods, emotions, and feelings impact how we see things, what possibilities we have, our relationships, our Actions and interactions, and ultimately, our Results. Learning about them is important to more effectively be, do, and have what we seek to be, do, and have.

What do I do with this?
Your feelings and emotions come and go with events around you. You can observe them, be aware of them, and choose how or if to respond to them, but eventually the event, and your feelings and emotions around it, will change. Your mood, or the mood you walk into, is a little different because it’s a longer-term context that exists independent of events. If you want to change, or design, your mood you need to work a little harder. Here are some guidelines for designing moods:

1. Become an observer of moods (yours and others’). Identify them as moods and not just how things are.
2. Beware of stories we’ve built around our moods. We have a tendency to need to be right about our moods and can give many reasons and justifications for why it makes sense to be in the mood we are in.
3. Look to the corresponding Assessments (judgments) that we’ve made that are consistent with the mood. When were these assessments made? What were they based on? Examine them more closely. Always be sure to look for the opposite of your assessments too!
4. Be with people who don’t give space for certain moods.
5. If you don’t see yourself as having moods, understand that virtually all of your experiences are shaped by your prevailing moodspaces. You don’t have them, they have you.

CEEK a better way by designing your moods!

Interested in learning more about SOAR? The full list of sessions is available on our website and Jennifer will be sharing more about each session here on the blog. Follow this space to learn more and watch out for availability of our next cohort!