We experience emotions all throughout the day and throughout our lives. It can range from being happy or sad, angry or nervous. Each day we are faced with hundreds of decisions whether it is deciding what you are going to eat for breakfast or if you are going to accept the job offer you just received. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, emotions are a conscious mental reaction (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body. This definition is a prime example of why I think emotions play a huge role in how we make our decisions whether it’s a good decision or a bad one.
Our emotions make an effect on us each day, success can even depend on your understanding and ability to interpret them. Nervous system responds by creating a feeling of your body that can be thought of as a “gut feeling”. Our emotions are designated to inform many of our decisions. When emotions are triggered it is not always accurate or sophisticated. A prime example of this is visiting a car lot and a salesperson approaches you, often times that salesperson is very pushy to make that sale and which gives you the reaction that makes you feel the emotion of annoyed, mad, or disgusted—experiencing these emotions is your mindset and it tells you to protect yourself.
A lot of people may try and choose to ignore the emotion they are experiencing. But emotions have a purpose and that purpose is telling your body what to do and informing you. Each and every day we face decisions that contain a ton of information that you have to reflect on. It may be easier to ignore your emotions versus facing them. For example, being in a room with somebody who is an introvert and you’re an extrovert your responses may reflect off of each other positive/negative because both of you have different emotions affecting their choices.
Emotions can impact your actions and how you may go about that specific actions. I notice emotions get high when typically, you are in a high place of stress such as work or school due to productivity and time management. Many people respond differently when approaching and completing a project. Some people might experience anxiety others don’t until the assignment or project is complete. The best way to cure this anxiety is by getting the task done early or meeting the deadline. If you’re able to find what motivates you it will help you pursue your goals and help you make better decisions. Your emotions can control you in numerous ways, you could even use it to your advantage if you know how to properly use them. Many people think they can control their emotions, but they really can’t. Emotions give us a different meaning and outlook to the world based on our personal mindset, not one person can see the world the same way.
If we did not have emotions we wouldn’t be where we are today, without emotions, we would be ineffective in making decisions. Emotions can even affect when you work with a team such as working with others on an intense project for work or school emotions typically get high because you want to put your best effort forward. When it comes down to it and making decisions having some type of emotion is good even if that makes it could create an unwanted emotion leading to being unproductive. When you feel fear, anger, disappoint it can lead to a spark in motivation. On another note, too much emotion can have a bad impact on you, even if it doesn’t seem unpleasant. When working with others it is critical be aware of others emotions around you and how their decisions can affect you. Next, I am going to talk about groups of emotions and how they affect people who are working in teams.
Emotions such as inspired, excited, interest, hopeful or curious are emotions that make us feel good. Each one of these emotions can affect the way we make decisions. These emotions give us a good feeling where everybody is happy. These emotions lead to distracted and slow or excessively optimistic. If somebody strikes the group may brush of risks, moving forward without considering alternatives and making decisions that do not meet expectations.
Another group of emotions such as being stressed, anxious, confused, worried, and unsure make you feel bad. Typically, these emotions motivate us to change and do a good job towards a task that given. If you are a part of a team that does not feel that they are experiencing these emotions they may not be putting their best effort forward. Each one of us has experienced some type of emotion like this when working in groups. When you are working in groups each person should have a “need” recognition or want to get something done and may experience the emotions about potentially motivating them to finish the project or task at hand. This group of emotions typically means you are motivated and solution orientated.
The next group of emotions I will be talking about is confident, satisfied, and pleased. These emotions lead to good vibes but affect the decision-making process in an unsatisfying way. These emotions lean toward team-building and having each member be loyal to the group. A confident group of leaders does not consider many different alternatives or analyzing other options. They are satisfied with the work that is done and does not feel it necessary to make changes. Over time this can lead the group to slowly deteriorate because of disagreements or overly confident group members. These emotions develop great team building but poor results.
The last group of emotions I will be talking about is angry and irritated. There is not one good thing about these emotions in a team working environment. These emotions do not do good and will make you feel bad. Anger leads to us being closed minded and not looking through other points of view. Many people are angered by many different things. Angry teams lead to negative presence all around. With an angry team, you will more than likely have closed minded people not willing to expand to meet deadlines and the job done in a timely manner. Angry teams lead to bad decisions which will produce bad results.
When making decisions with a team you want them to provide the best results and there are multiple ways to approach it: understand and ask people their point of view, and then write down what they say. A research study I found is that inviting five people to give their perspective on decisions create a balanced and diverse emotional climate. A diverse climate is the best way to make decisions and understand others thoughts and through their thoughts, their emotions.
In the article Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes it stated: ‘while regret can be and has been viewed as a consequence of decision making, and in particular, when an alternative not chosen results in better outcomes than the alternative chosen, we treat regret as a separate subtopic for several reasons”. I feel like this is very relatable to each one of us. When emotions are heightened we sometimes make the most unsophisticated decision which typically ends up in regret wishing we would have gone with a different option. Personally, something I try to work on is taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture before concluding a decision through emotions. I feel as if this happens over time and through maturity. When I was in high school and I would get angry I would base a decision irrationally off of that emotion which would end up in regret. Now, I take into consideration my thoughts and emotions before I make a decision.
They’re many personal experiences I can relate to when talking about emotions and decision making. A movie was created through emotions and making decisions. This movie is called Inside Out, created by Pixar Studios in 2015.
This movie is about a little girl whose life gets turned upside down when she finds out she is moving from the Midwest to San Francisco, CA. Throughout the movie, you see Riley’s emotions such as Joy—who is guiding her through a life-changing event but is making it difficult because of other emotions affecting her decision making processes such as sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. Riley is at a prime stage in her life where she goes through the emotions of feeling joy one day and angry the next. The emotions have to get Riley’s life on track before she spins out of control making her decisions solely based on her anger, sadness, and fear. Soon after experiencing negative emotions her personality islands start to shut which is what makes Riley, Riley.
hen Riley moves from a different city her anger of moving really takes a toll in her life; she had to leave her friends and the house she grew up in. Riley is devastated giving up things that mattered most to her such as going out for pizza with her mom and thinking about a previous memory that she had back in her “home state” which makes her sad or going from playing hockey every day with her teammates to playing with a whole new team. Riley is at hockey practice when something happens and produces the emotion anger leading her to make the decision to quit hockey which is something she has grown up with. Late in the movie, she comes to realize she can’t give something up she loves and her reaction made her make the wrong decision.
This scene really sticks out to me and a few of the decisions I have made in my life based off of emotions. When I was eight years old I went through every kids worst nightmare—parents getting divorced. Although I was really too young at the time to understand what was going on at the time as I got older my emotions about the situation started to take a full effect on me and I started making decisions irrationally.
No kid wants to experience their parents going through separation, especially after being so accustomed to them being together. Until I was about thirteen years old I stayed with both parents equally. I was in middle school and that’s when times get crazy with your emotions and growing up. Emotions I was experiencing here was confusion, anger, anxious. I stopped staying with dad because I was only thinking about myself and what I wanted to do and that was living with my mother. As I got older I realized that was the first man’s heart I had ever broken. If I could go back and change my decision that was clearly based off of heightened emotions I would. But the decisions we make and the emotions we feel are what makes us who we are today, hopefully, the best version of ourselves.
How exactly does this tie into this movie and my experience? Riley gave up something she loved because of a life-changing event that happened to her, lucky enough she was able to realize it shortly after she made the mistake. I made the mistake of not staying with my dad anymore because of emotions I was feeling and I was at the age in life where I really just wanted to be with my mother. Emotions can lead to you making some of the biggest mistakes of your life but hopefully, you learn from them. I am lucky enough to still have an awesome relationship with both of my parents.
Another example of how emotions have affected my decision making has been recent. I am a senior in college graduating this December. I have been on the job hunt and recently just got a couple of job offers. My emotions were especially heightened during this process due to stress and being anxious. When you have multiple things going on in your life you really have to start prioritizing what is the most important and go from there. That is one way I control my emotions is being able to prioritize and write down everything I am doing and to really think about what type of decision I am going to need to make.
As I reflect back on going through the 1-2 month process on searching for a job I reflect back on my emotions I was feeling such as being nervous, anxious, and stressed. My first job interview was with Hormel Foods. You typically go through multiple steps in this process such as a phone interview and a corporate interview. Another interview I had was with MillerCoors experiencing that same type of process. Not only did I have to prep for my interviews but I also had to keep my options open and apply for other jobs in the instance I did not get this one, and keep up with my school work all at once. Heightened emotions make it quite hard to focus on one task and that leads to making a decision you feel is most important.
After receiving my first offer I wanted to accept the job immediately I was calling my family to let them know I got a job offer, the excitement I felt was amazing. The emotion and happiness completely blindsided the fact that my dream company I wanted to work for was still in the process. Getting older I realize you have to take a step back and think about things before you go through with it. Lucky enough I was able to receive a job from my dream company Hormel Foods and will be relocated to Ohio this upcoming January.
My takeaway from this is that you are going to experience many emotions throughout your life positive and negative and it can lead to some of the best and worst decisions of your life. But if you can control those emotions better you will be more effective in making those decisions for you and the others around you. I am a firm believer that the decisions you make are solely based off of your emotions and how you feel. Whether you are making a decision with team members or for yourself you always need to look at the bigger picture.
This research project has opened my eyes to how much emotions can really affect your path in life and the decisions you make. It’s important to make extra time to control your emotions before you make your decisions. We are only human and make errors and hopefully, we learn from those errors. Every day we experience an emotion and it is in our hands on how we control it. We face challenges every day are our emotions (most of the time) will help us overcome those challenges.
