Part 2 of 4
In our post last week, we stated that you can be successful with emotional intelligence. Many times, we might hear the term but imagine that it is too complicated to try and understand. But we are here to show you that it is easy and you can excel in this area of your personal and professional development. The first aspect of emotional intelligence has to do with growing in emotional self-awareness. We're going to give you one of the simplest ways to grow in this self-awareness. Keep reading to find out.
Self-awareness speaks to knowing who you are, your strengths, weaknesses, values and ways of thinking. So if we connect it to our emotions, emotional self-awareness is about knowing what you're feeling at any given moment and why you feel this way, plus understanding the impact of these emotions on others. It also means knowing how the emotions of others impact you.
One of the best ways to improve your emotional self-awareness is to build your emotion vocabulary. Language experts will share that the best way to learn a vocabulary is in context. So in this way, build your emotion vocabulary in the middle of feeling the emotion.
Remember we promised that you would meet the uniformed attendant again from our opening story in Part 1? To build your emotion vocabulary, ask SIR for help:
Search: Look for an emotion wheel (you can browse the internet or save a copy on your device). It is a round and colorful picture with ranging emotions (not just sad, happy, angry).
Identify: Select the emotion you are feeling, based on its intensity. For example, am I feeling sad, gloomy or depressed?
Reflect: Think about why you're feeling this way, the people or things that triggered this feeling and how it is impacting your actions and the people around you.
SIR helps you to become more aware of how you're feeling and why. As you improve your emotion vocabulary, you won't have to feel confused about how you really feel in any moment and you'll become better at managing these emotions, by yourself and around others.
Remember, you can be successful with emotional intelligence.
Join us next week when we explore Part 3!
