Self-Awareness and The Revolution of Emotional Intelligence (EQ).

How differently would your life look if you had stronger and more harmonious relationships, better health, less stress, you slept better, had more confidence, felt more alive, made better decisions and if you were more productive and passionate in your chosen career or lifestyle?

“Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.” Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

Your quality of life is dependent on the quality of decisions you are willing to make. The cornerstone of emotional intelligence IS mental grit.

Emotional intelligence has long been a critical component of success in the lives of highly productive people and successful people. Prior to this, it was believed that one of the only paths to success was having a high IQ. It was the only determining factor in success. Some experts are now proposing that emotional intelligence is more important than IQ in achieving more in life and becoming a happier and healthier person. When you have EQ, your life tends to have less drama and conflict in it and goes a lot more smoothly.

Your IQ and the your work ethic aren’t telling the full story. Your ability to manage your emotional state in your own life and how you manage other people plays a hugely imperative role in determining your happiness, your success and the quality of your life.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

“All learning has an emotional base.” –Plato

Emotional competency (EQ) is the ability to be aware of your capacity to control and express emotions. It is the unique ability to handle all relationships with empathy and prudent judgment. It is the ability to make sound decisions and handle those choices from a place of emotional maturity.

The benefits of high emotional intelligence include:

• High self-esteem and confidence;
• Better Self-Awareness & Self-Judgment;
• Being thoughtful in response to high-pressure situations;
• Handling adversity and stressful situations maturely;
• Better overall health and wellness;
• Exhibiting high levels of integrity;
• Cessation of drama in your life;
• Achieving your goals and dreams;
• Increased productivity;
• The ability to cultivate and maintain solid relationships;
• The ability to overcome adversity;
• Overall better self-leadership.

“Leadership is the ability to get extraordinary achievement from ordinary people.” – Brian Tracy

Self-Awareness IS The Key To Change.

When you are confident, when you get s%!t done, you achieve your goals, you have the ability to adapt and when you exhibit grit and resilience, have the ability to overcome the stress in your environment, you are considered emotionally intelligent.

Daniel Goleman defined 5 components of EQ. They are self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, empathy and motivation. Life is about change and improvement, it is about progress and not perfection. At the end of the day, we all have the power to change anything in our lives. If you want it badly enough, you will find a way.

Awareness of self is the backbone of EQ, without it, you will never change.
“Self-awareness in its finest is accepting your shortcomings and accentuating your strengths.” Vaynerchuk, 2015. Awareness is imperative in order to create lasting transformation in your life, learn from your errors in judgments, mistakes and become resilient and confident in the face of stress and adversity.

“Whatever the challenge, you have to be strong, see things through a new lens, and take decisive action if you want to move through it successfully.” (Bradberry, 2015)

We ALL want to have a great life, to be happy, create wealth, have successful relationships and love out our dream jobs, but this is always seemingly easier said than done, right? What I see a lot of in my self-development practice is that we all want similar things but a lot of people just aren’t willing to do what it takes. When things get difficult, you deflect back to the old ’self’ and submit to the limited mindsets and digress back to your old familiar habits and old ways of thinking. But that is the thinking that lead you to live out your limits and not the greatest ideal of yourself in the first place.

Mental toughness is a skill that you cultivate over time, through life experience and through that ability to manage your emotional state when things get tough. But when you feel stagnant, it can be extremely difficult to cultivate. It takes a mentally tough person to make BOLD decisions, choose to dare greatly, break free from the OLD limited mind to take a risk and move into the unknown.

It is a fact that mentally strong people know that their mental and emotional state has a powerful effect on their ability to perform and succeed in life. It is now known that confident people with high EQ went on to earn higher salaries and enjoyed promotions far more quickly than others did.

Manage Your Internal State, Manage Your Life.

You know when you EQ is being tested because you can effectively manage your internal state and your mental toughness doesn’t wane or become affected despite what you are going through. You remain calm and objective and your ability to make sound decisions and judgments don’t falter. When your adversity becomes a manageable state of being and you can still produce results, you are expressing emotional competency.

People who have mental stamina and can harness their EQ set a higher standard for themselves and stand out. They rely on their ability to see adversity and challenges as opportunities to grow and learn rather than to give up and retreat. Edison is well known for his mental endurance, he tried over 9000 times to build the light bulb and didn’t give up until it was completed. He is also well known for having the utmost amount of grit when his factory burned down in 1914 on which the destruction was in the millions and it destroyed some of his best work and said “Thank goodness all our mistakes were burned up. Now we can start fresh again.” He had the ability to continue in the face of major adversity and despite the external events that could have made anyone keel over and give up, his mental fortitude was indestructible.” Thomas Edison

Are You Emotionally Intelligent?

The quality of your relationships is dependent on the quality of your emotional state of being. When you have the ability to manage your internal state of emotions, amazing things happen. People who exhibit high EQ have strong and sound relationships. People with high EQ are resilient. How they deal with setbacks and challenges is a sound reflection of their adaptability. This is mainly due to the fact that they can be mindful when they experience negative emotions but they don’t let them consume their internal state of being.

Emotional intelligence IS the cornerstone of mental toughness. You cannot be mentally tough without the ability to
fully understand and tolerate strong negative emotions and do something productive with them. Moments that test your mental toughness are ultimately testing your emotional intelligence (EQ).

“Unlike your IQ, which is fixed, your EQ is a flexible skill that you can improve with understanding and effort. It’s no wonder that 90% of top performers have high EQs and earn a lot more than their counterparts.” (Bradberry, 2015). They also have the unique ability to be resilient during times of adversity, learn from their mistakes and trust that their decisions will lead to favorable outcomes and transmute their experiences into wisdom.

“Unfortunately, EQ skills are in short supply. TalentSmart has tested more than a million people, and we’ve found that just 36% of these are able to accurately identify their emotions as they happen.” (Bradberry, 2015). So there is a lot of opportunity in this are to progress and evolve to become better and challenge your current ideals and beliefs to achieve an elevated level of EQ so that you may lead a happier, healthier and more successful life.

Learning to be emotionally intelligent requires a certain amount of effort and time. It takes becoming aware, learning new information and then applying that new philosophy to create new experiences. Through that experience breeds new wisdom and a heightened level of self-awareness, ie. EQ.

“Stick to your DNA. Try to get to a place where you understand yourself and understand what your strengths are, you have got to find your self-awareness. You have to audit who you actually are because then you won’t bullshit yourself.” (Vaynerchuk, 2015)

Susie G

References:
Bradberry, T. June 25, (2015). The Simple Habits of Mentally Tough People.
Available at: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/06/25/comment-simple-habits-mentally-tough-people [Accessed: 4.23.2016].

Schmidt, M.(2016). TalentSmart. About Emotional Intelligence.
http://www.talentsmart.com/about/emotional-intelligence.php
[Accessed: 5.15.2016].

Vaynerchuk, G. (2015). “Self-Awareness: Know Yourself” Online Video Clip. YouTube, 5 May, 2015. Web
Apr.23.2016. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6tKf1IR5j8