How can a health expert deal with emotions such as lack of appreciation and rejection?

Initial situation

Paul is in his mid-30s. He works as a health expert. He acts confidently in his working environment and has his area of responsibility under control. Normally he is good in dealing with emotions in the area of his expertise, experiencing emotions like lack of appreciation is new to him.

He changed employers two years ago. As a sought-after expert, he advises many specialist bodies and committees. He has also represented his boss at panel discussions. He regularly prepares specialist papers for his boss, but only his boss travels to international conferences and business delegation trips on health topics.

Initially, Paul thought he would need some time to familiarize himself with the company in order to better understand connections, procedures and internal processes, but now he would like to use his experience to contribute to an international environment and maintain international professional contacts.

A few weeks ago, he told his boss about an international professional exchange in which his former employer would also be taking part. She rejected his request without giving it much thought and without giving any professional reasons, not even in response to his somewhat brash request. He leaves her office in a rage.

Paul feels that his boss is not treating him with respect and that his expertise is being belittled or ignored. Dealing with emotions like this is new to him.

He spends the rest of his working day in the office with rage in his stomach, but even on the way home he is angry about the situation and the crude rejection. Even the evening sport or the beer afterwards with his sports friends doesn’t help. When he goes to bed, he could still freak out when he thinks about the situation. As this wasn’t the first encounter where he felt ignored, a trail of stress has formed that no longer dissipates on its own for Paul.

He is worried that he won’t be able to control himself the next time this kind of situation arises. Paul also notices that he is finding it increasingly difficult to motivate himself, finding it hard to perform to his full potential and muster energy for his professional passion.

Measures for coping with stress

Do you feel like Paul? Feelings of emotions like lack of appreciation for your work leads to anger or self-doubt. You are not getting anywhere with your own solutions:

1 Finally, he decides that he does not want to solve the problem alone. Perhaps there are other colleagues who are not being sufficiently supported or valued by managers. If he wants to resolve the conflict with his boss, recommendations from experts or other people involved might not be a bad idea. Paul has heard about the new “Employee Assistance Program” and registers on betterlinked.eu.

2 Paul assigns his individual user name (he is only completely anonymous on the communication platform with this user name) and his password. By using a nickname, there is no indication of profession, status, hierarchy or job title. Paul can communicate his questions openly in the company’s own “safe space”.

3 Paul first decides to search for his topic, conflict with the manager, and looks around to see which conflict topics have already been communicated on the platform. He can choose various freely selectable terms or predefined “tags” (“keywords”).

4 Paul can’t find a case that describes his problem exactly, no one is dealing with emotions like lack of appreciation as he does, so he writes his own post: “I would like to know your opinion, I feel ignored by my boss. I do a good job because I have a good education and a lot of experience. Now I’ve asked if I can accompany a delegation that I find interesting and my boss has turned me down again and again. She does this job herself. I have done all the preparatory work and also written a briefing paper. I’m angry when I think about the situation, I’m totally annoyed. I want to sort it out, but I don’t know how to do it without freaking out in front of her.” As he writes, Paul realizes that sharing his experience anonymously makes the pressure a little lighter. He wants to see if other colleagues have similar experiences. He can now take a deep breath, the question is written down.

5 Paul is now actively looking for stress tips that will help him to let go of the current situation better and not constantly think about it when he sees his boss in the department. The conflict also keeps bothering him at night, causing him to wake up several times a night. He is still researching when he receives the first comments in response to his question.

6 Paul realizes that he is not alone with the problem, which provides immediate relief and lowers his stress level. One colleague writes that in a similar situation, she was particularly angry with herself for not reacting immediately. Another writes that a lack of appreciation can lead to burnout.

7 A colleague writes that he had a conflict with his boss that almost consumed him. He was about to resign. But then he tried a conversation. He prepared very well and only asked open questions. The conversation was so open and positive that he now wonders why he hesitated for so long. Another person wrote that the situation described reminded him of the behavior of his class teacher. The choice of words alone, “do the task yourself”, made him angry. At school, he had difficulty defending himself, but today he has more options and scope for decision-making.

8 The sleep expert recommends: If Paul is already sleeping badly due to his high stress levels (around three times a week for several weeks), then it’s high time for tips from the “sleep well coaching”. This is a combination of knowledge about sleep hygiene and exercises to help Paul let go of his thoughts in the evening. Paul also learns helpful sleep know-how, i.e. knowledge from sleep research and sleep medicine. After all, we are talking about a third of his lifetime, with great relevance for his health and quality of life.

9 Paul finds it interesting. The different perspectives and the perception of his problem by third parties have shown him so many possible solutions. He now looks at the situation differently. Paul thinks about where his anger might come from. He thinks about whether the situation is so unbearable for him because his expertise is not valued. Or does he feel this way because he is not seen as a human being?  That’s his cue; his sports teacher didn’t want to see his talent either. He sat on the bench as a substitute in important soccer matches, the same pattern. Powerlessness – at some point this robbed him of the fun and joy of an otherwise energetic activity.

10. he feels encouraged by the experiences of others to seek a conversation with his superior. If he uses the variant of questions, he may be able to concentrate more and keep his emotions under control. On the platform, he also finds a best practice article with the STAR method and an expert article on which of his own sources of strength can provide support in challenging situations.

11 He writes down a few questions before asking for an appointment, wants to get another expert opinion in an individual coaching session on betterlinked.eu and make sure that he is well prepared for the meeting and dealing with emotions can be under control.

12 Thanks to his good preparation and his own analysis of the conflict situation, Paul can concentrate better on the content of his arguments and control his emotional affects during the conversation with his boss. He conducts the conversation calmly and objectively.

The result WIN – WIN – WIN when dealing with emotions like lack of appreciation

Conclusion

Paul has learned to manage his emotions wisely, conduct difficult conversations confidently, resolve conflicts and successfully shape change. The coaching has provided him with methods for self-coaching and thus achieved a lasting effect on health-promoting and performance-enhancing self-leadership.

Paul has experienced how he can deal positively with stress and resolve his own stress issues.