HALT! Do not make that decision now!

Here’s a brilliant, handy mnemonic that can save anyone from lots of trouble:

HALT!

(that’s German for ‘STOP’)

Don’t ever make decisions when you are

H = Hungry

A = Angry

L = Lonely

T = Tired

All of these are typical states when we are emotionally vulnerable and rather easy to influence and swayed. This can relate to small or big decisions.

Some examples:

H = Hungry. An empty stomach makes you buy much more in the supermarket.

A = Angry. Never send an email written in an angry state. Cool down, then edit.

L = Lonely. People will do a lot for company. Con-men and scam-artists use it.

T = Tired. Tiredness amplifies our extremes. Autopilot and biases take over.

One thing is missing in the acronym though for me:

Anger is not the only extreme emotion that affects our decisions. Being positively excited about someone or something can also sway our decision-making in a dangerous way. Overall, it’s more about the strength of the emotional spike than the exact emotion.

Examples for derailing positive emotions?

1. You find an online course. You are excited and purchase right away.

2. A salesperson leads you into an emotional high and gets you to buy now.

3. You sign the contract to join a new company after just 1 great interview.

4. You marry a person who you just met days or weeks ago.

All this is human nature. What can we do here? We can strengthen our EQ and especially emotional self-awareness. Simply knowing that we are not immune to irrational exuberance helps a lot!

Here a few tips and steps:

1. Observe, endure or enjoy the extreme emotion, while you are in it, but do NOT allow yourself to make a decision while you are still in that ‘high’.

2. Delay decisions by default. The more significant the decision, the longer you should wait. 1h for an angry email. 1 day for a costly gadget, etc.

3. The rule: For anything significant, sleep over it. At least once or twice.

Emotional self-awareness is a core skill of a Leader who coaches well.

In coaching competence lingo, this is called ‘maintaining presence’ and refers to the ability to manages own emotions to stay present with the other person.

The Good news? Emotional self-awareness and self-regulation can be learned.

If you are curious to learn how, let me know! It is also part of the curriculum of the Intellicoach Leader Academy!

All the best and have a great, emotionally controlled week ahead!