Skip to main content

What are Your Hot Buttons?


What are Hot Buttons?

We hear a lot about the importance of emotional intelligence in personal and work life. However, tangible and easy-to-use strategies to cultivate emotional intelligence without psychobabble are hard to find. One simple strategy to increase awareness of your and others’ emotions, a key component of emotional intelligence, is identifying your hot buttons (Lynn, 2007). This technique is useful in gauging your reactions during an emotionally charged or high-stress situation and makes you aware that there may be other ways of reacting to a situation rather than the usual fight-or-flight response. Hot buttons are events, words, phrases, situations, or a combination of these things that set off an immediate and intense negative emotion in you. People may not be intentionally trying to push these buttons, but your defensive reaction may drive them away. Thus, recognizing these hot buttons and not letting yourself give into these will help you maintain healthy interpersonal relationships.

Identify Your Hot Buttons

You can identify your hot buttons by completing these unfinished sentences (Lynn, 2007):
  • I don’t like it when people …
  • I feel offended when people …
  • I get irritated when people …
  • It makes me angry when people say …
  • If people would only …
  • At work, I wish people would …
  • My work would be a better place if people would stop …
  • My home would be a better place if my spouse (or kids) would stop …
  • It drives me crazy when …
  • I think it’s rude to …
If a particular family member or co-worker is more likely to push your hot buttons, you can replace the word “people” in the above statements with this person’s name.

Analyze Your Hot Buttons

Having identified your hot buttons, ask yourself the following questions:
  1. “When are these hot buttons more likely to set off a negative emotional reaction?” “Is it when I am already feeling irritable (or frustrated, or sad, or lonely), then I am more likely to respond negatively to my hot buttons?”
  2. “What is the impact of my emotional and behavioral reaction to my hot buttons on other people?”
  3. "Are the themes underlying my hot buttons based on my faulty assumptions?" (e.g., people should act a certain way, or I should be treated a certain way). "Can I change my assumptions?"
  4. "Are my hot buttons reflective of my values conflicting with others?" "If so, can I accept that people will have values different from mine?" "If not, then do I part ways with these people, especially if these are core values that I cannot change?" (the latter is usually the case when core values such as respect, honesty, integrity, humility, kindness, etc. are in conflict).
  5. “Is someone, who knows what my hot buttons are, using this knowledge to negatively impact me?” If so, then this person is most likely manipulating your emotions to their advantage. It's time to move on.
In sum, there are easy and practical ways to cultivate one's emotional intelligence and identifying your hot buttons is a good place to start.

To learn more about evidence-based self-management techniques that promote mental health and well-being, check out Dr. Duggal's Author Page.

HARPREET S. DUGGAL, MD, FAPA

REFERENCES

Lynn, A. B. (2007). Quick emotional intelligence activities for busy managers. New York, NY: American Management Association.







Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 Questions That Will Help You Overcome Anxiety, Fear and Panic

Anxiety, fear, and panic are associated with irrational thoughts involving themes of threat or danger. These irrational thoughts take the form of “if” or “what if” beliefs. For example, a person who is afraid of heights may think, “If I am on the elevator alone and it gets stuck, no one will be able to save me,” or a person with panic disorder may believe, “If my heart beats too fast, it means that I am probably having a heart attack.” The “if” and “what if” thinking in anxiety disorders is a byproduct of your irrational thought patterns, including magnification, catastrophizing, overgeneralizing, and “should” and “must statements.” Sometimes, anxiety is a result of genuine problems or situations that have no solutions. How does one then decide to challenge one's irrational thinking or problem-solve, or try acceptance strategies? The seven questions that will help you guide your decision to choose one path over another to overcome anxiety are as follows:  What is the likelihoo...
2 comments
Read more

3 Ways to Express Gratitude

Gratitude is one of the most commonly used and proven positive psychology interventions. It enhances well-being and is an effective way of self-managing depression. Grateful people experience higher positive emotions such as joy, enthusiasm, love, happiness, and optimism. Gratitude buffers you from hurtful feelings of envy, resentment, greed, and bitterness. In addition, grateful people can cope more effectively with everyday stress and show increased resilience in the face of trauma-induced stress (Emmons, 2013). Whether or not you have a grateful disposition, the good news is that it is possible to cultivate gratitude intentionally. You can choose one of the following three methods to express gratitude, but most beginners start with a gratitude list as it is a simple yet effective strategy. Gratitude lists This is the “classic” and the most studied method of expressing gratitude. It involves regularly making written lists of several things for which you are grateful. T...
1 comment
Read more

Eight Ways to Master the Art of Small Talk

There are some social rituals that we cannot avoid, especially when interacting with people we don’t know, and nothing is more universally disliked than the ritual of small talk. Small talk is a fine art that balances the use of some better questions to open the conversation and then navigate the talk without lingering on obligatory foundational topics about how one’s weekend was or discussing the weather. If you find yourself avoiding social interactions because you're uncomfortable and embarrassed about small talk, here are eight ways to improve at it and avoid making it awkward or superficial (Duhigg, 2024; Haupt, 2023; Lee, 2025). 1. Ask better questions. To facilitate conversation, avoid conversational dead-end questions that can be responded to in a single word, such as "How was your weekend?" or "How are you?" Also, avoid fact-based questions like "Where do you live?" Instead, ask questions that invite people to elaborate on their experience...
Post a Comment
Read more