"8. You don't know your triggers"

The article I posted about Tuesday is something I have continued to think about. It was an article on 11 signs you lack emotional intelligence and #8 was "You don't know your triggers." On Wednesday morning, I found one of my stress triggers. This point in the article was more about triggers that make you act impulsively, but I think it is important professionally to understand your triggers for that as well as anger, stress, etc. Something that stresses me out is being late. I worked the late shift on Tuesday, the night before my interview, and did not get home until past midnight. When I finally got in bed, I went to set my alarm extremely tired and probably not thinking very clearly. When I woke up in the morning, I realized I completely misjudged what time I needed to get up and instead of having about an hour and a half to get ready, I now had a little less than half an hour. I was able to get myself from looking like Ana in the movie "Frozen"

to at least acceptably professional in about 15 minutes. I was extremely stressed from the time I woke up until I was about half way there and realized I would still be about 20 minutes early. I like to go with the rule of thumb, "if you're early, you're on time. if you're on time, you're late."
Luckily this is something that is completely in my control. In the future, I will try to set my alarms for important events earlier in the night so I don't make the same mistake that I did. Because I can get ready extremely quickly, I was able to fix my mistake but I hope to avoid having to use this skill often. Long story short: math is important, set alarms when mentally capable, and being able to get ready quickly is definitely an asset. Everyone has triggers and understanding them and how they affect you is important to either help avoid them or learn how to react more appropriately when they do arise.