When they talk to us about emotions, countless words come to mind, sadness and joy, above all. But also happiness, anger or disgust. And although they all have a very important role and functions in our daily lives, there is a very special emotion that can help us enormously if it is used well. An emotion that can lead us to be prepared for what is going to happen to us, which leads our body to allocate all the resources at its disposal towards what is to come and in this way face it better..
This is a powerful emotion, and one that has great potential, perhaps the one that presents the most potential of all. And it is that if this emotion is used well it can help us a lot to achieve objectives that would otherwise be impossible. We talk about the surprise.
Surprise is undoubtedly the most unique emotion of all, we can define it as something unforeseen or novel and whose main consequence is to divert all our attention to that. Surprise is classified as a neutral emotion, since surprise itself is never negative or positive, what is negative and positive are the acts and emotions that occur immediately afterwards. The surprise only lasts a few seconds as it quickly turns into another emotion depending on the nature of the surprise event. Evolutionarily, surprise has allowed our ancestors to deal with unexpected changes in the environment quite effectively, diverting all our resources towards this change in order to face it successfully..
Surprise occurs as a reaction to an event or event that is inconsistent with the schemes we have in our mind, and leads us to unleash a series of processes that occur very quickly and abruptly, stopping everything that our thinking was working on. the moment this surprise is presented.
This ability to stop thoughts abruptly is what gives all the potential to surprise, because when we are immersed in a cascade of negative thoughts, perhaps a good surprise can divert our attention to something more positive almost immediately. and make us forget what triggers that negative thought, such as stress or anxiety, reducing them considerably. The most important effect that we feel with surprise is a feeling of "blank mind" that is immediately focused on the new stimulus, that is, we feel that the previous thought suddenly stops..
And although the surprise generates uncertainty, and that is something that we generally do not like very much, the process of being surprised in certain situations can be very beneficial, as long as the surprise that comes later is positive of course. For example, if a person is immersed in an anxious process, and we positively surprise them, we will get them to stop their entire process to dedicate all their resources towards the surprise that we are giving them. That is, we can restart the person so that they stop paying attention to their internal thoughts that generate stress and anxiety and all their attention goes to us, reducing at least momentarily that suffering that the person suffering from anxiety due to an event or determined thought.
This technique has been a popular practice (especially in movies), although controversial for a long time, since it has always been possible to see how giving a "slap" to excessively nervous people can work to make someone react, and this is no more that a somewhat surprising way. Logically, that is not the surprise you should give, there are many other ways to surprise a person dragged by their negative emotions much better, such as performing an unexpected behavior such as jumping without coming to mind, or a strange movement with the hands that leads the person to devote all their attention to us, say a positive comment that is surprising and novel to the person, or surprise with some little detail that is not expected.
As you can see, surprise has enough potential to direct the person towards a goal, a potential that well used can serve many purposes, in addition to reducing a cascade of negative emotions, surprise can also serve in the field of sales to achieve ( if the person is surprised) to direct their attention to what we are telling them about our products or services, or in the case of education if we manage to surprise our students so that they give their full attention to what we want to explain.
From what we have seen we can conclude that the ability of the emotion of surprise to direct our attention to other events makes it a very powerful emotion, we can even dare to say the most that is the most powerful to guide our thinking towards a thought, which well used can serve to achieve many good goals in people, that lead them to give the best of themselves, especially in moments where they are prey to their negative emotions and feel stress or anxiety, for example, surprise can be a powerful momentary remedy to reduce them and prevent their most immediate consequences (possible panic attacks, self-harm ...), on the other hand, surprise can also help us to better convey a message if we really manage to surprise our interlocutor, or help us achieve a goal if we manage to make our interlocutor surprised.
Therefore, never doubt the potential of a good surprise to achieve a complicated and difficult goal. You will be surprised what you can achieve with it.
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