Imagine two salespeople preparing for a high-stakes meeting. One feels energized by the adrenaline, using it to focus and deliver a pitch with confidence. The other feels overwhelmed by similar sensations – racing heart, sweaty palms – and interprets them as signs of potential anxiety or failure. The physical experience is the same, but the impact on their performance is drastically different.
This difference illustrates an essential point: emotions and feelings like stress and anxiety are not inherently negative or positive. Instead, it’s our interpretation and response to these emotions that shape our experience. Embracing emotions as signals rather than threats can lead to feeling more present, reaching your potential and improving your resilience.
The Problem: Viewing Emotions as a Threat
Emotions and feelings like stress and anxiety often get labeled as “negative.” This tendency creates a pattern where we fear them, interpreting them as threats rather than signals. This mindset can trigger what psychologists call the “Nocebo Effect.” If you believe stress or anxiety is a sign that something is wrong, you may start interpreting normal physical sensations – like a racing heart or shallow breathing – as evidence of imminent failure or danger. This, in turn, worsens your emotional response, intensifying your feelings of stress or anxiety.
On the flipside, seeing feelings like stress as a positive can lead to an overdependency on them to be able to perform (e.g. always needing a deadline or close to one, to act on something) or putting yourself into a stressful state so often, you reach burnout.
The Solution: Recognizing Emotions as Signals
Treating emotions as signals rather than threats helps you navigate stress productively. Emotions can act like a smoke alarm in your house. Just because the alarm sounds doesn’t mean there’s a fire; it might simply be reminding you to pay attention or make an adjustment. This reframe can help you respond rather than react, keeping you in control.
To make this shift, try the following questions to help reinterpret emotions:
What do I believe I’m feeling?
Start by naming the emotion you’re experiencing, like “I feel stressed about this pitch.” This helps you pause, identify the feeling and gain perspective.
What else could this feeling be?
Consider alternative interpretations. Could your stress actually be a form of excitement about the opportunity? Often, the physical sensations of stress and excitement are similar, so try to stay open to different possibilities.
What is this emotion signaling?
Instead of viewing your feelings as a block, ask what the emotion is prompting you to address. Stress about a sales pitch could signal the need for more preparation, a different approach, or a focus on potential client objections. It can also highlight that maybe your focus is on the uncontrollables in the situation and instead perhaps channel that energy and time towards what you can control.
What benefit might come from this feeling?
Reframing emotions helps you see the potential upside. Stress can enhance focus or motivate you to refine your strategy, making you better prepared. Anxiety can make you more proactive and pre-empt challenges that may occur before they do. Recognizing these benefits can shift your mindset from dread to appreciation.
How to Apply This Reframe at Work
Here’s how this framework can transform a high-stress sales scenario:
Challenge: You have a big client presentation, and you’re feeling stressed. Your usual response is to avoid preparation until the last minute, hoping the adrenaline will help you power through or grin and bear the feeling to just get through it. But the stress builds, and your confidence takes a hit as the deadline approaches.
Solution: Instead of viewing your stress as a threat, see it as a signal to prepare. Working through the questions above, you identify that your stress might also be mixed with excitement about the potential for success. You understand that your stress is prompting you to polish your pitch and anticipate client questions, allowing you to go into the presentation feeling prepared and focused.
Results: By reframing the stress, you turn it into motivation, boosting both your confidence and your chances of success. Rather than feeling overwhelmed, you harness the emotion as a driving force for effective preparation. You can then reflect afterwards and notice that if you weren’t feeling like that, maybe you wouldn’t have prepared in that way or pre-empted those objections or questions. Doing this over time builds a sense of gratitude towards the feeling.
Why This Matters in Sales and Marketing
In sales, emotions are inevitable; they’re part of the highs and lows of the field. But when you view them as signals instead of threats, you unlock their potential to serve you, even under pressure. Rather than letting stress or anxiety affect your focus, you can use them as tools to refine your approach, allowing you to stay proactive and resilient.
Consider emotions as contextual cues – like different types of alarms. A fire alarm might indicate immediate action is needed, but a simple reminder alarm can prompt you to stay on top of tasks. In the same way, recognizing the context of each emotion enables you to harness it constructively.
By viewing emotions as signals, you gain the power to respond instead of react. This shift can transform your experience in sales, turning each emotional signal into an opportunity for growth and improvement. In the end, emotions can either serve or sabotage. By training yourself to see them as signals, you make them allies on your path to success.
Author
Get our newsletter and digital focus reports
Stay current on learning and development trends, best practices, research, new products and technologies, case studies and much more.
