Your elevator of life

AS I continue to navigate the many corners of life, I am discovering more and more that I live in an elevator, as the variations of the ups and downs of life always stare me in the face on a daily basis.

The key to successful living is having an acute understanding of life and people, as these are the critical elements necessary in keeping the wheel turning. Because of the high levels of diversity that life offers, it is difficult or even impossible to navigate on the very same routes each and every moment without being distracted by challenges of one kind or another.

You may escalate to new heights today but tomorrow you may be at rock bottom, some people may join you for the entire ride and for others, you may need to stop to and let them off. When people enter your elevator you first need to conduct an initial scan of the environment to assist in determining their motive for entering in the first place.

It may seem like a lot of work to do, but experience has shown the importance of scanning.

Managing your elevator requires a lot of doing particularly if it reaches a point where those you’ve allowed to enter, start pushing your buttons out of sync and not according to your direction.

They are labelled as button-pushers and are found mostly in the workplace. Recognising their inability to control, they begin to spread rumours and continuously engage in negative spewing hoping that you would become despondent and create delays in reaching your destination.

Their aim is to plant seeds of discord between you and valuable people in your life.Dealing with button- pushers requires you to commit to acquiring an in-depth understanding of emotional intelligence which is your ability to control your emotional responses when people press your buttons incorrectly and/or without notice.

Start with self-awareness which tests your ability to identify your own triggers, understand why you have them and where they emerged from. You also need to question what is it that other people do that causes knee-jerk response.

Next, is social awareness which pushes you in becoming aware of how your actions and behaviours affect those around you. Managing your relationships is also important to the mix as you must consider other people’s feelings particularly when making decisions.

Your elevator of life is extremely important and can only be controlled by you and you only through the grace of the almighty.

Sandrine Rattan is a communications/ branding consultant, author and president of the International Women’s Resource Network (IWRN) Contact: thecorporatesuitett@ gmail.com or intlwomensresourcenetwork@ gmail.com or contact 283-0318.