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At some point, every one of us will get angry at work. Maybe our boss publicly criticized our work, a colleague bashed our cool idea in a meeting, or an employee ignored our instructions for the umpteenth time. Feeling some anger or resentment in those situations isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it’s probably to be expected. But being unable to let go of that anger is a real problem.
Research has shown that people who do well at forgiving others (i.e. letting go of their anger and resentment) typically experience fewer negative physical health symptoms, like disorders of the cardiovascular or immune system, and fewer negative mental health symptoms, like anger and depression.
And it’s not just major issues where letting go of anger is important. Imagine, for example, you got criticized for that memo you just wrote. In the grand scheme of a career, it’s probably not the worst thing that we’re ever going to experience. But even there, some people struggle to move past the criticism, let go of their anger and resentment and forgive their boss.
Tens of thousands have taken the online test “How Do You React To Constructive Criticism?” and we’ve learned that fewer than a quarter of people are really able to let go of their anger and start moving forward. But for those who can respond effectively to tough feedback, they’re 42% more likely to love their job.
One of my studies, called "Employees Need More Resilience," asked more than 30,000 employees a question that’s a standard test of resilience: "When I really make a mistake, I immediately start looking for another chance to try again." We learned that while 27% of employees say they Always start looking for another chance to try again, 20% say they Rarely or Never do. And as you might expect, those who bounce back quickly from failure, rejection, getting criticized, etc. are significantly happier at work.
Of course, letting go of anger and bouncing back from failure is easier said than done. But there’s a simple yet powerful technique to help you move past anger and resentment much more quickly.
Typically, when we think about experiences that make us angry, we view the scene from a first-person perspective. We’re not a fly on the wall or watching ourselves from a distance; we’re immersed and imagining the scene just as we saw it the first time.
If we’re replaying that time our boss publicly criticized our work, we often replay it in our minds as though we’re right back in that situation, watching the boss, seeing the faces of everyone else.
However, when we replay conflicts like that in our head and radically change our visual perspective, it has a big impact on our mental state. It’s called self-distancing, and it’s a scientifically validated phenomenon. Several styles of psychological therapy use variations of self-distancing, from mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to dialectical behavior therapy to neuro-linguistic programming.
Psychologists Özlem Ayduk and Ethan Kross (from UC Berkeley and University of Michigan, respectively) have conducted some powerful research on what happens when we instead replay those negative experiences from a self-distanced, third-person perspective (the video camera in the corner or the fly on the wall perspective). Instead of seeing through our own eyes and replaying that situation, we imagine how a video camera would have seen it, so we would be outside of our body watching both ourselves and our boss.
In one such study, Ayduk and Kross asked subjects to recall a time when they were enraged by a conflict with a romantic partner or a close friend: preferably a conflict that’s unresolved and still highly upsetting. They then analyzed how people did their recalling. Some put themselves right in the moment with a first-person view. But others employed self-distancing; they recalled the conflict as though they were a fly on the wall, almost like an out-of-body experience in which they could see themselves interacting with the romantic partner or friend.
And here’s where it gets interesting. People who employed self-distancing—they imagined the situation from the perspective of a fly on the wall—felt much less intense emotional and physical reactions. They felt more closure. And their blood pressure rose less and returned to its normal rate more quickly.
If you’re having difficulty moving past anger and resentment, replay the situation in your mind, but do it from the perspective of the video camera in the corner of the room or the fly on the wall. Don’t try to guess what the other person is “really” thinking or feeling. Limit yourself to the spoken words and observable actions. This simple trick of self-distancing can reduce harmful interpretations and feelings so you can let go of the anger and resentment, and move forward with achieving great career success.
