The impact of emotions in planning

Ana Edna GO Author

In the previous post, "How much time are you willing to dedicate to planning?", I shared the analogies I find when you plan moving, with change and growth in our lives.

Today I want to talk to you about the impact of emotions on planning and the importance of balance between person and process orientation. I will keep the analogy with moving from one place to another.

I’ll start with the analogy: When you move your place of residence or place of work, you can take the opportunity to purge. Some of your belongings should travel with you and some should not because they would be much better used by others. Moving is a good time to decide what to donate, sell, or dispose of and what to keep.

Decision making in this process has to do with the practical and the emotional sides. Attachment can cause you to carry everything with you even though you know that giving it a new destination would be better. That's when being aware of the importance of balance comes into play.

Balance between person and process orientation consists of giving equal weight to both. What we think and what we feel is on the person orientation side; knowing how to listen to ourselves is a skill worth developing. Hard data, numbers, and ways of measuring are on the process orientation side; a skill to develop in this case is practicality.

When emotions cloud your vision for making a practical decision, one way to balance emotion and reasoning is to understand what prevents you from deciding from reason.

You can achieve this in at least two ways:

1. Understand how our brain works in the face of change and intentionally resort to your prefrontal cortex, which is the analysis area.
2. Contemplate the process orientation side and choose with a practical end in mind.

The impact of emotions when you plan to move can result in attachment. What do you think could result when it comes to our processes of change and growth?

Categories: : Our Brain, Start Smart -> Grow Strong, Strategy