4 Stoic rules to master your emotions at work

You can feel everything—the frustration, irritation, and fear—and still choose your response from a place of calm. That’s what the Stoics (thinkers from ancient Greece and Rome) have taught me. Stoicism is staying calm when life isn’t, focusing on what you can control, and not wasting energy on what you can’t.

I’ve been studying Stoic philosophers for years, and the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus has transformed my relationship with myself and how I work. I now practice the art of making the most of the gap between feeling and action. These four Stoic teachings can help you become your best self at work.

1. You control the response

The many experiences at work are not all in your control. But your response is completely yours to master. Your colleague takes credit for your idea in a meeting. Your instinct will be to lash out in rage. That reaction is human and instant. Most people can’t stop it. But how you behave and what happens next is entirely up to you.

The Stoics called this the dichotomy of control. “Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion and, in a word, whatever are our own actions,” Epictetus said. Some things are yours, most are not—whether your boss recognizes your work, whether a deal closes, or whether your colleagues respect you.

None of it is inside your circle of control. Your interpretation is. How you speak to everyone. What you do to earn respect. That’s all up to you. Before you speak after something goes wrong, get back to what’s yours to control. And let go of what ends up making things worse. The colleague who irritates you most can teach you patience. The failing initiative teaches you how to communicate bad news with honesty and care.

2. Name the emotion before it names you

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality,” Seneca observed. The mind magnifies trouble far beyond what reality demands. We spend a lot of time in our heads wrestling with past experiences: Could it have gone any better? Maybe I could have said things differently. What did they think of me?

Name your feelings to take back control. When you name a feeling—for example, “I’m embarrassed” or “I’m threatened”—you create distance from it. Distance creates choice. Detachment makes you think clearly.

Your manager rejects your proposal in front of the team. Before you feel humiliated, you feel something unnamed. Name it. I feel dismissed. Now it’s a feeling you can examine. You are not lost inside it. You can get better answers.  You can put the feeling to the test: Is what I feel the only truth? Is it useful? What does it require from me? How do I recover from this and keep doing what I do best?

“What disturbs men’s minds is not events but their judgments on events,” Epictetus said. 

Naming your emotion is the first step. Acknowledging is how you see it for what it is. And then comes the most important part: detaching from it. Because you are not your feelings. You are the awareness of them. Once you stop letting the “dismissal” you feel get in the way of who you are, you can get back to doing what you must at work. Rise above what stands in the way.

3. See the obstacle as the instruction

Marcus Aurelius had a simple formula: The obstacle is the way. “The impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way,” he said.

The obstacle itself is your way forward. You get passed over for a promotion. Your first instinct will be, “the system is unfair” (it might be) or “I’ll quit” (you might). But if you intend to go on in the same company, use what you feel to your advantage.

What is this teaching you? Maybe you need to make your work more visible. You may need to have a direct conversation you’ve been avoiding in order to get more personal feedback. Or use the opportunity to learn more skills to improve your options in the future. The promotion you didn’t get is neutral. What you build with it is up to you. What stands in your path becomes your path.

“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body,” Seneca once said. Opportunities for growth, learning, and redirection are everywhere if you pay attention.

4. Judge your day by your values

Epictetus said, “First say to yourself what you would be and then do what you have to do.”

Work is designed to produce infinite external feedback. Likes on your presentation. Approval from leadership. Validation from your boss. The machine runs on your need for it. The Stoics recommended a different mindset. Each evening, Epictetus would review his day against a single question: Did I act according to my values?

External results—Did my boss praise me? Did the project get the attention it deserves?—are outside your control. This mindset changes everything. If your values are integrity, curiosity, and giving it everything you have, practice them daily. It’s the only metric that accumulates over time.

“No man is free who is not master of himself,” Epictetus said. “A man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.”

Here are a few questions to direct your actions today: Where did I act against my principles today? What did I avoid that I knew was right? Did I act, or just intend to act? Was I ruled by reason or by impulse?

Use those questions to guide your actions today.