What Triggers You?

We all have experiences where we get so triggered, so mad, that we blow up on everyone around us. Coaching is such an intense profession, and as much as we talk about relationships and growing people, it is highly driven by wins and losses.

Coaching and communicating can lead to miscommunication and unintended conflict. We have this thing in our brains called the amygdala - our brain's guard dog - that stays alert and keeps us safe. 

When that kid second-guesses us in the middle of a big timeout, or that athlete talks back in the middle of an important and intense defensive drill, or when that angry parent starts to storm across the court, coming to talk to you about what his daughter didn't play in the final few minutes of a big game, that triggers what many of us call Fight, Flight or Freeze mode. That feeling of the hairs rising on the back of your neck, or your body getting hot, or the sudden need to ball up your fist (or the sudden need to run to the locker room) is your amygdala reacting and hijacking your train of thought.

There have been (many) moments when I have reacted in ways that I am not proud of - responding from a state of escalation that ends with hurt relationships and loss of trust, sometimes permanently, when I should have stepped back, taken a second, and deescalated myself before engaging with (or yelling at) my team. Don't get me wrong, I will still get intense and yell if I feel like I need to raise the energy of the team or if I need to get a point across (or when my amygdala takes over because we didn't box-out), but I try to do so intentionally and strategically, not out of reaction.

We all get escalated and hijacked; the key is knowing what triggers us and to see these triggers coming before they take over. We need to be able to manage our emotions and responses because we are the 'emotional thermostat' of the team, and our energy influences and affects our team's mood and productivity. 

Emotions are contagious, and our brains have a negativity bias, meaning we see and focus on negative experiences more than positive ones. So we have to fight to see the good in things.

3 Key Strategies that can help you calm your amygdala and deescalate yourself are:

1 - Identify What Sets You Off
2 - Label Your Feelings
3 - Create an Early Warning System

I know that a player backing down from a loose ball sets me off. I also know that inconsistency from the referees, especially in crunch-time moments, really sets me off. I am a pretty calm coach, but I do have my triggers, and being aware of them and being able to anticipate them helps me stay calm because I can prepare myself and calm myself at the first signs of being triggered. Knowing what triggers me keeps me from taking the bait.

Affect labeling, or defining what is bothering you, helps reduce its intensity and brings you back down to normal. Just saying to yourself what is happening, like, "I am getting angry," or, "I get so frustrated when they don't box-out, or, "My wife is trying to trigger me right now," helps you reframe your thoughts and reduce the impact, and it takes you from being the lead actor in a horror film that ends with you going off the deep end with your team (or wife) and puts you in the role of director where you can regain control of the situation and extinguish the fire instead of adding to the flames.

Once you start recognizing your triggers, start to notice your physical reactions to them. If you notice your body getting hot, your jaw tightening, or for me - the feeling of blood rushing to my head and my fists balled up, that is a cue to take a step back, power down, and regroup. Taking just 10 seconds before you react can save you from a lot of trouble, and after 90 seconds, you can get to a complete emotional reset because that is how much time it takes stress hormones to leave your body after they have been activated.

The S.O.D.A. Strategy is a good and simple strategy to use when you are triggered and escalating:

Stop - Stop and pause instead of reacting and taking the bait. The first 10 seconds is the key. That is the amount of time it takes stress hormones to move through the body to your brain (prefrontal cortex).

Observe - Use the 10-second rule so that you can power down, respond (not react), and extinguish the fire.

Detach - Detach from trying to be right and focus more on trying to get it right. This requires listening to the other person and seeing what they see. Remember that your body can emotionally reset in just 90 seconds.

Awaken - Shift your focus from yourself to the other person. When our amygdala (the brain's guard dog) reacts, it is because we are trying to protect ourselves. But from what? When you start thinking about the wants and needs of others, you realize that they might not know or understand what is going on, that they might be scared or reacting out of fear, or they might need more clarification. Or they might just be upset, defiant, and belligerent, and that warrants a different response, a different set of tools (and possibly a different blog post).

Remember that emotions and body language are contagious. Use a calm voice, slow down, and start calm so that will help everybody power down and reset emotionally. I heard a speaker tell a group of teachers that a phrase that he used at a middle school campus when kids starting escalating was, "Don't go 13."

This week, start thinking about the things that trigger you, how you can see them coming, and how you can deescalate so that you can respond to conflict appropriately and effectively and without biting someone's head off.

A lot of the knowledge shared here, including the S.O.D.A method can be found in the wonderful book, Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain by Zaretta Hammond.