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The Purpose of Negative Emotions and How to Use Them to Your Advantage

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Grief. Suffering. Anger. Anxiety. All of these words come with their own visceral experience. Even seeing them on the screen, you can feel the punch in the gut, the struggle for air, the adrenaline coursing through your veins, and the weight on your body that feels like you’re walking through quicksand.

As people, we become averse to these emotions. We run from them, avoid them, and stuff them until we can no longer hide them from ourselves, and even then, we seek the answers of zen to take these nightmare-making emotions away as fast as possible. 

But what if I told you that negative emotions are actually good? 

Okay, maybe not good necessarily, but useful and important. And the more you try to outrun the negative emotions, the harder they will pound you when you get too exhausted to run any further. There is a much more powerful and grounding way to deal with these emotions

1. Examine the emotion

Negative emotions are so powerful because they’re like big, blinking neon warning signs saying, “HEY! Something’s wrong here! Pay attention!”. The problem is that because those signs can be blinding, it’s easy to close your eyes and shield yourself from them. The problem with that is you miss their intended purpose altogether when that happens. 

Negative emotions exist for one main purpose: to let you know when something has gone awry. When you fall and scratch your knee, it hurts. If it didn’t hurt, you wouldn’t know to tend the wound and you’d risk making it worse. Emotions are like nerve endings for your mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness. When things hurt, it means they need to be examined, not run from, ignored, or buried. 

When you examine the emotion you’re feeling, you need to ask yourself this question first: Is this thought true?

If the thought isn’t true, then you need to change your thoughts. If the thought is true, then you need to change your actions so that you can change the truth to be in alignment with who you truly are instead of who you’ve been acting like.

“When embraced and accepted, negative emotions can be a powerful catalyst to positive change in one’s life and can lead to deeper feeling of meaning and authenticity.” – Paul Wong

2. Changing your thoughts

Thoughts are like horses. They’ll run wild and trample all over you if you let them. But if you lead them, direct them, and corral them, then they can be quite useful. The more you allow your thoughts to spiral and run away with you, the more negative emotions they’ll create for you to process. And if you stuff those negative emotions in a corner somewhere, eventually they’ll come back to bite you. But changing your thoughts, that is the key. 

When we talk about changing your thoughts, we’re not talking about distracting yourself with a better feeling thought. That won’t help you. Instead, we’re talking about examining the thought and breaking down why it’s not true so that you can actually change the thought to something that is true. 

For example, if you have the thought, Nobody likes me, running around in your head all day, that’s not serving you. When you actually look at that thought, is it true? Probably not. Break it down as to why. 

You probably have a friend or two that like you. You may have a family member that likes you. There’s that neighbor that tries to bend your ear every time you wave hello at the mailbox. You may have pets who adore you. So if it’s not true that nobody likes you, what is true? 

Could you say, “I have people and animals in my life who value me”? Or how about, “The relationships I have are ones where I’m cherished”? Or even this one, “I am liked by some people”? 

Notice, you’re not trying to go to the other extreme and say, “EVERYBODY likes me!” That wouldn’t feel true, and your subconscious mind would immediately kick it out. But if you can reach for something that’s more true that you can show yourself is accurate, that allows you to actually change your thoughts. 

3. Changing your behavior

Sometimes when looking at a thought, it’s going to feel like a sucker punch because the thought is true in that moment. But that doesn’t mean it has to be true forever. It’s in that moment that you get to make an important decision. Are you going to live according to a truth that you don’t want to experience or are you going to change your behavior to live in alignment with the truth you desire? 

It’s a confronting choice because changing your behavior requires you to make new conscious decisions. You have to examine, “What are the thought patterns that come up that perpetuate this cycle of behavior?” Once you’ve identified those patterns of thoughts, you have to actively choose something else instead. 

Transformational Meditation™ is one of the techniques that can help with this, but for now, watch the excuses that you’ll use to keep yourself from living the aligned truth. Once you know what they are and get adept at talking yourself through them to take the action that you need to take, the new behavior becomes your default. And then you’re free to make better choices, which will reduce your experience of negative emotions as a natural consequence.

As painful as negative emotions can be, they’re there to show you your next stage of growth. When you can see where the work needs to be done and you run toward it instead of away from it, you’ll reduce negative emotional suffering and get to aligned living faster.

Dr. Libby Adams is a speaker, author, and transformation strategist, using her over 30 years of experience in education, leadership, and personal growth to help hundreds of high achievers transform their lives from the inside out, reaching their goals in record time. Dr. Adams is also the founder and president of the International Academy of Self-Knowledge, a master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming, and the creator of Transformational Meditation™. Dr. Adams is also certified in the Dr. Albert Ellis™ method of addiction counseling and is the creator of Spiritual R.E.H.A.B., a 28-day transformational journey for people who do NOT have alcohol or substance abuse issues but who still want to "rehab" something in their lives. Dr. Adams has devoted time as president of the Association for the Integration of the Whole Person and is the presiding president of the AIWP Board of Directors. If you’re interested in learning more, check out www.transformationalmeditation.org.

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Success Advice

Is Failing Really That Important? Here’s the Truth

Failure makes people flexible, receptive, and more accommodating. 

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Importance of failure
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Facing failure and criticism is the most challenging task for any human being. Everyone loves success and hates failure. (more…)

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Why You Shouldn’t Discount A Brick And Mortar Store In 2025

We’re constantly told about how stores are closing down and how shoppers prefer online options, but is it worth questioning this theory?

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How to grow a brick and mortar store
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In 2024, you’d be forgiven for thinking that physical shopping is a thing of the past. We’re constantly told about how stores are closing down and how shoppers prefer online options. But is it worth questioning this theory? (more…)

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How to Alter Your Business Approach With Technological Advancements

Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner.

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Technology’s evolution has impacted everything, and business is no exception. Keeping up with technological trends has become a challenge for almost every business owner. Entrepreneurs unable to do so are being wiped out of the market.

There is no doubt that AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) have taken over the business world. These technological advancements are impacting decision-making, success percentages, and other entrepreneurial aspects.

Adapting to these developments is integral to business success. Let’s explore how you can accomplish these milestones.

Embed the strength of AI and ML.

AI has modified business operations in major ways. For instance, companies have employed bots for customer support. These bots go through an effective learning process via Machine Learning before being able to answer like humans.  

According to CyberGhost (CG) bots can also perform detailed data analytics and make business moves with high success percentages.

ML is used more for the analysis of data chunks and generating successful predictions. This simply means that business owners do not have to worry about large-scale financial losses. 

In terms of deployment and usage, a reputed company like Netflix employs machine learning for decision-making.

Blockchain is increasing the count of business opportunities

Tampering of financial transactions is quite common and causes severe monetary damage to customers. With the rise of digital payments, this risk has increased. 

Blockchain is used to elevate your experience for monetary transfers. It combats penetrating events to extract confidential customer information. 

Most business sectors are using block chain but finance and supply chain management sections have a higher count. These two corporate sections have several monetary deposits and withdrawals taking place. 

In terms of percentage, approximately 72% and 5% of finance and supply chain firms have implemented block chain successfully.

Dedicate Yourself to Continuous Learning and Individual Development

You invest in learning some of the very important skills, including digital marketing, financial management, and how to gain customers as an entrepreneur.

You need to set up your knowledge base about doing business on Coursera and Udemy with the basics that are necessary for the business, building further by networking with experts through webinars.

Besides, Agile methodology will introduce elasticity to your company: this review and feedback system with further correction regularly will allow for enhancing efficiency and promptly reacting to the market.

Developing key skills to achieve goals

Running a business successfully is not only about having niche/domain knowledge. Business owners need to have communication / soft skills as well in addition to niche information.

Here are some key technical/domain-related areas that business owners should have a strong grip on.

Data Storage on Cloud: These days, companies do not store their data on physical servers. Therefore business owners should know how data is stored/edited/removed/updated via AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and other platforms.

Data Analysis/Interpretation Qualities: These days, data is as precious as gold. Business owners with data analysis abilities make correct predictions. As a result, their ventures grow in volume.

Development/Coding Knowledge

Programming knowledge gives business owners an edge whether the application is developed in-house or outsourced. It assists in getting updates deployed and handling application underperformance without getting professional support every time.

Hacking proof framework

There is no benefit of having an advanced automated system if can be penetrated. Successful business owners have above-average knowledge of cyber security and hacking attempts. They are able to choose top-notch anti-hacking software without much of an ambiguity.

Communication Abilities/Soft Skills

Here are some key communication qualities that business owners should have:

Communication/Conversation: Business owners should use to-the-point sentences in both written and oral communication.

Issue Resolution Abilities: Business owners should be able to drill down to problems and solve them. This is done successfully only if an entrepreneur has in-depth business domain knowledge.

Agile Implementations

It is mandatory for business owners to have knowledge of iterative/agile models. With such a competitive environment, it is impossible for business owners to succeed without adopting an agile framework.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

A productive business venture starts with a clear vision. The first factor making a business successful is the idea behind it. It helps with endless growth and combating competition successfully. Katherine Philips once mentioned that business goals are inevitable if goals are set concretely.

  • Goals should be based on smart achievements instead of complexity. Focus on the value that each one of them adds. 
  • Business objectives should not be vague. Key indicators should be constructed to measure the success/failure of each milestone.
  • Be realistic when setting goals. Do not aim at impossible milestones since they can be demotivating.
  • Milestones/goals need to be time-bound. Set a completion deadline for each one of them. 
  • Business goals should not be alien. Owners can think out of the box but not be obsolete / unrelated.

Create a productive well-crafted Business Strategy

Business owners cannot succeed without having a network. Some tips help in this case. Attend conferences and professional gatherings to connect with other entrepreneurs.
Here are some other related points business owners should pay attention to.

  • Attend meetings and conferences to stay updated with trends and meet business owners who already have well-set ventures. This helps in enhancing the learning curve of new / growing entrepreneurs.
  • Being a part of business communities/groups is very productive. When one shares opinions and discusses decision-making tactics, it helps in preventing errors and enhancing success rate.
  • Even the most experienced business owners have mentors as learning never stops. Take part in mentorship programs so there is an assurance that you are following the correct roadmap.

Conclusion

There is absolutely no doubt that business dimensions have evolved with technological advancements. Successful entrepreneurs have grabbed these changes in due course of time and continue to evolve. On the other hand, people following old paths and conventional steps fade out of competition. In a nutshell, keep an eye on the processes and practices you follow as these factors decide success rate.

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Success Advice

Understanding the Power of Yes and No: How to Create Boundaries For Success

These words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds

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Creating legal boundaries
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The two smallest yet most powerful words in life, “Yes” and “No,” have a big impact on our growth on both personal and professional levels. In addition to affecting the choices we make every day, these words have a significant impact on how our success unfolds. (more…)

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