Try and focus on learning – what can you do differently next time? What are the positives you can take from this situation? Also, perhaps you need to review your standards – being practically perfect at all times just isn’t reasonable. Wallowing in self-pity, or beating yourself up is not productive. Making mistakes, getting things wrong or not delivering the winning pitch –can all cause bitter disappointment and unnecessary levels of self loathing. Sometimes the cause of worry or frustration is ourselves. Try reframing the issue – are you going to be worried, angry or upset about it tomorrow, next week, next month? What about next year? Looking at the bigger picture can help keep things in context. This means you need to find a way to accept what’s happening and move on.

You can only ask other people to change their behaviour – you can’t make them do it. There are of course going to be times when having a talk doesn’t work.

If it’s someone you manage, maybe you can suggest setting up a regular meeting instead. If someone constantly interrupts you with ‘urgent’ things (that aren’t), explain that this knocks you off track. If someone talks loudly, explain that it makes it harder for you to concentrate and ask him or her to speak a bit more quietly. Focus on facts, and how what they are doing impacts on you – try not to make things personal. In that case, you need to deal with it by taking them to one side and asking them to change their behaviour. Ok, so sometimes avoiding a co-worker just isn’t possible, and you are expected to work well with all of your colleagues. Or if a person you’re not too keen on keeps trying to distract you with idle chit chat, try moving seats and putting some distance between you. If you’ve identified a trigger, try to avoid it.Īt its most basic, if you’re irritated by having to queue for the lift – and you’re physically able – take the stairs. In our Emotional Intelligence training we ask people what coping techniques they have developed. So, in order to get calm, keep calm, and move forward in a productive and healthy way, we need to find a way to handle these triggers. At an adult, professional level we know that reacting and allowing these emotions to take over doesn’t look good – and is unlikely to further any career prospects. And they are unhelpful, unproductive and get in the way. These sometimes overwhelming feelings are the result of people or events triggering an emotional response, and we all have different triggers. You know the ones – where you feel the prickle of anger or upset, surges of frustration or even crushing levels of disappointment.

We’ve all had bad days – and bad interactions with other people. It is a nostalgia for the state of being repressed – solid, stoic, public spirited, as opposed to the depoliticised, hysterical and privatised reality of Britain over the last 30 years.”Ībout the Keep Calm typeface (Caslon Egyptian, apparently).Ĭouple of other shows I’ve been on recently that you might be interested in: I dig into the surprising (to me) etymology of ‘dude’ with Callie Wright on Queersplaining I popped up on the Stay At Home festival with Robin Ince, Josie Long, George Egg and my brother Andy and if you have even the slightest inclination to know more about my background, how I work, what goes into this show, humour, podcasting etc, this interview with Stuart Goldsmith on The Comedian’s Comedian is perhaps the most comprehensive I’ve ever done.Bad day? How to control your responses, and not let your emotions control you. More background about the poster campaign from the Imperial War Museum.īy Owen Hatherley: “The poster isn’t just a case of the return of the repressed, it is rather the return of repression itself. Most fun way to stabilise bookcases I can think of.

This video about the poster turning up at Barter Books makes Barter Books look like the prettiest bookshop in the world! Stuart told me the train set along the top of the bookcases was to stabilise them. More information about how the 1939 poster campaign was put together…then taken apart. Bookshop owner Stuart Manley talks about unearthing the poster that spawned countless imitations author Owen Hatherley explains why the poster was NOT, in fact, an exemplar of Blitz Spirit and British bulldog courage and whatnot and psychologist and therapist Jane Gregory considers whether being told to keep calm can actually keep us calm. And lo! A decor trend was born: teatowels, T-shirts, mugs, phone cases, condoms, and a zillion riffs on the phrase. TRANSCRIPT Twenty years ago, a 1939 poster printed by the British government with the words ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ turned up in a second-hand bookshop in Northern England.

Keep calm and carry on year