Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (9 page)
Read Emotional Intelligence 2.0 Online
Authors: Travis Bradberry,Jean Greaves,Patrick Lencioni
Even though you are not a hawk, you can still develop a more objective understanding of your own behavior. You can practice by taking notice of your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors right as the situation unfolds. In essence, the goal is to slow yourself down and take in all that is in front of you, allowing your brain to process all available information before you act.
Consider an example. Let’s say you have a teenage son who is more than two hours late for his Friday night curfew. You’re sitting in a living room chair in the dark, waiting for him to stroll through the door and offer another creative explanation for why he’s late and wasn’t answering his phone. The more you sit there thinking about your son’s disregard for your authority and the hours of sleep he’s just robbed you of, the more your blood boils. Before long, you’ve forgotten the real reason you’re so upset—you’re worried about his safety. Sure, you want him to obey the rules, but it’s the thought of him out there acting recklessly that’s keeping you up.
Watching yourself like a hawk in this situation requires taking advantage of this calm before the storm. You know your anger is going to rumble to the surface the moment his weak excuses tumble from his mouth, and you also know he’s more likely to follow your rules if you can get him to see and feel your concern. This is the moment when you need to consider what this situation looks like from above. You realize your brooding is just fanning the flames of your anger. You remember that he’s a good kid who’s been acting too much like a typical teenager lately. You know your anger isn’t going to make him change; it hasn’t worked thus far. The bigger picture now in clear view, you decide to explain the rationale for his punishment and why you are so upset, rather than just fly off the handle. When he finally comes slithering into the house, knocking the lamp off the end table in the darkness, you’re grateful you can see the whole picture and not just what’s in front of you.
The biggest challenge to developing self-awareness is objectivity. It’s hard to develop perspective on your emotions and tendencies when every day feels like a new mountain to climb. With a journal, you can record what events triggered strong emotions in you and how you responded to them.
The biggest challenge to developing self-awareness is objectivity.
You should write about time spent at work and home—nothing is off limits. In just a month, you’ll begin to see patterns in your emotions, and you’ll develop a better understanding of your tendencies. You’ll get a better idea of which emotions get you down, which pick you up, and which are the most difficult for you to tolerate. Pay careful attention to the people and situations that push your buttons, triggering strong emotions. Describe the emotions you feel each day, and don’t forget to record the physical sensations that accompany the emotions.
In addition to helping you see yourself more clearly, writing down your emotions makes your tendencies much easier to remember, and the journal serves as a great reference as you raise your self-awareness.
We all succumb to them every now and then—those down-in-the-dumps moods where nothing seems to be going our way. When you feel this way, your low mood puts a dark cloud over every thought, feeling, and experience you have. The tricky thing about your brain is that, once a negative mood takes over, you lose sight of what’s good in your life, and suddenly you hate your job, you’re frustrated with family and friends, you’re dissatisfied with your accomplishments, and your optimism about the future goes out the window. Deep down, you know that things aren’t as bad as they seem, but your brain just won’t hear it.
Part of self-awareness is knowing what you’re going through even if you can’t totally change it. Admit to yourself that your bad mood is hanging a cloud over everything you see, and remind yourself that your moods are not permanent. Your emotions change all the time, and low moods will pass if you allow them to.
When you’re stuck in a down mood, it’s not a good time to make important decisions. You’ll have to remain aware of the mood and understand it if you hope to keep it from leading you to make mistakes that will only pull you down further. Not only is it OK to reflect upon recent events that may have brought on the mood, but this is also a good idea—as long as you don’t dwell on them for too long—because often that’s all it takes to get the mood to pass.
Bad moods and negative emotions are not the only ones that cause trouble. A good mood can deceive your thinking just as much as a bad one. When you are feeling excited and really happy, it’s easy to do something that you’ll regret.
Consider this familiar scenario: your favorite store is having a once-a-year sale with markdowns of up to 75%. You rush into the store on the day of the sale and end up buying all sorts of things that you’ve always wanted but can’t really afford (at least not all at once). The rush and exhilaration of your purchases carry you through the week as you show off the goods to your friends and family and let them in on the fabulous deals you got. When your credit card bill arrives at the end of the month, it’s another story.
Foolish spending is not the only mistake you can make while riding the high of a great mood. The excitement and energy you enjoy during a good mood paint a rosy picture of all you encounter. This leaves you far more likely to make impulsive decisions that ignore the potential consequences of your actions. Stay aware of your good moods and the foolish decisions these moods can lead to, and you’ll be able to enjoy feeling good without any regrets.
Why
You Do the Things You Do
Emotions come when they will, not when you will them to. Your self-awareness will grow abundantly when you begin seeking out the source of your feelings. Get in the habit of stopping to ask yourself why surprising emotions rumbled to the surface and what motivated you to do something out of character. Emotions serve an important purpose—they clue you into things that you’ll never understand if you don’t take the time to ask yourself why.
Most of the time, it really is that easy, but when you are left to your own devices, the days can just whiz by with little time to contemplate why you do what you do. With a little practice, you can trace your emotional reactions back to their origins and understand the purpose of your emotions. The surprising thing about this strategy is that just paying attention to your emotions and asking yourself good questions like these are enough to help you improve. Can you remember the first time you reacted like this and with whom? Are there similarities between then and now? Can anyone evoke this reaction in you or only specific people? The better you understand why you do the things you do, the better equipped you’ll be to keep your emotions from running the show.
The plates of life are constantly spinning above you. You juggle projects at work, never-ending meetings, bills, errands, emails, phone calls, text messages, chores, meals, time with friends and family—the list goes on. It takes great amounts of attention and focus to keep the plates from crashing to the ground.
Maintaining this balancing act keeps your attention focused outward, rather than inward and on yourself. As you run around struggling to check your daily “to dos” off your list, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important to you—your core values and beliefs. Before you know it, you find yourself doing and saying things that deep down you don’t feel good about or believe in. This could mean you find yourself yelling at a coworker who made a mistake, when you normally find such hostility unacceptable. If yelling at your colleagues runs contrary to the beliefs you wish to live your life by, catching yourself (or being caught) doing it is bound to make you uncomfortable and even unfulfilled.
The trick here is to take the time to check in with yourself and jot down your core beliefs and values. Ask yourself,
what are the values that I wish to live my life by?
Take a sheet of paper and separate it into two columns. List your core values and beliefs in the left column and anything that you’ve done or said recently that you aren’t proud of in the right column. Is what you value in alignment with the manner in which you conduct yourself? If not, consider alternatives to what you said and did that would have made you proud of yourself, or at least more comfortable.
what are the values that I wish to live my life by?
Take a sheet of paper and separate it into two columns. List your core values and beliefs in the left column and anything that you’ve done or said recently that you aren’t proud of in the right column. Is what you value in alignment with the manner in which you conduct yourself? If not, consider alternatives to what you said and did that would have made you proud of yourself, or at least more comfortable.
Repeating this exercise somewhere between daily and monthly will be a huge boost to your self-awareness. Before long, you’ll find yourself thinking of the list
before
you act, which will set the stage for making choices you can live with.
before
you act, which will set the stage for making choices you can live with.
Self-awareness is generally an internal process, but there are a few instances in which the outside holds the clues you need to understand what’s going on inside. Without question, how you feel is reflected in how you look. Your facial expressions, posture, demeanor, clothes, and even your hair all say important things about your mood.
Physical appearance is more straightforward—what you wear sends a pretty clear, established message about how you feel. For example, wearing old sweatpants and ratty T-shirts and having disheveled hair every day tells the world you’ve given up, while overdressing for every occasion and never missing your weekly haircut lets people know you are trying too hard. Your demeanor also says a lot about your mood, but the message often gets twisted. If you’re meeting someone for the first time and you’re feeling insecure about how you’ll be received, like many people, you may tend to be aloof and a bit standoffish or get overzealous.
When you find yourself in similar situations, it’s important to notice your mood and consider its influence upon your demeanor. Is the look that you are projecting to the world one that you have chosen, one that your mood created, or one that you tend to lean on by default? Certainly, what you project reflects how you feel, and it’s up to you to understand it. Taking a moment here and there to check yourself will allow you to understand your mood
before
it sets the tone for the rest of your day.
before
it sets the tone for the rest of your day.
If you’re having trouble looking within to spot your emotional patterns and tendencies, you can discover the same information by looking outside yourself at the movies, music, and books that you identify with. When the lyrics or mood of a song resonate with you, they say a lot about how you feel, and when a character from a movie or book sticks in your head, it’s probably because important aspects of his or her thoughts and feelings parallel your own. Taking a closer look in these moments can teach you a lot about yourself. It can also provide a great tool for explaining your feelings to other people.
Finding your emotions in the expressions of artists allows you to learn about yourself and discover feelings that are often hard to communicate. Sometimes you just can’t find the words to say what you are feeling until you see it in front of you. Listening to music, reading novels, watching films, and even looking at art can act as a gateway into your deepest emotions. Take a closer look the next time one of these mediums grabs your attention—you never know what you’ll find.
Everything you see—including yourself—must travel through your own lens. The problem is, your lens is tainted by your experiences, your beliefs, and, without question, your moods. Your lens prevents you from ever obtaining a truly objective look at yourself, on your own. Often, there is a big difference between how you see yourself and how others see you. This chasm between the way you view yourself and the way others view you is a rich source of lessons that will build your self-awareness.
Self-awareness is the process of getting to know yourself from the inside out and the outside in.
Self-awareness is the process of getting to know yourself from the inside out and the outside in. The only way to get the second, more elusive perspective is to open yourself up to feedback from others, which can include friends, coworkers, mentors, supervisors, and family. When you ask for their feedback, be sure to get specific examples and situations, and as you gather the answers, look for similarities in the information. Others’ views can be a real eye-opener by showing you how other people experience
you
. Putting the perspectives together helps you see the entire picture, including how your emotions and reactions affect other people. By mustering the courage to peer at what others see, you can reach a level of self-awareness that few people attain.
you
. Putting the perspectives together helps you see the entire picture, including how your emotions and reactions affect other people. By mustering the courage to peer at what others see, you can reach a level of self-awareness that few people attain.
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