Do you ever wonder to yourself, “why is all this happening to me?” I have found myself feeling that way lately. My husband and I bought a house, my Mom was diagnosed with cancer, and the ins and outs of day-to-day life began to feel daunting at times. However, I continue to remind myself of the quote by Charles Swindoll, “Life is ten percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.” This reminds me that I am in control, even when it doesn’t feel that way. But lately I have needed some guidance on how to manage my emotions, and I have found my solace in a class, on the subject of Emotional Intelligence, that I am designing for the University for People here at Southwest.
Several of my Coworkers and I have been researching and training on this subject, which is a hot topic currently in corporate America. Emotional Intelligence is defined as “recognizing and managing feelings that are present in our relationship with ourselves and others.” One’s Emotional Intelligence, which is referred to as EQ or Emotional Quotient, is fundamentally different than one’s IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, as IQ is not going to change much over time, but EQ can change through experiences and awareness. EQ also is arguably the single most influential factor that drives performance and advancement within one’s career.
So, how do you actively grow your EQ? You must first start with a grounded self awareness. When my husband and I first bought our house, our stress levels were elevated due to the nature of moving and our reactions to change. It took me a few days to even realize that I was feeling something related to buying our house. But once I acknowledged this, I knew I needed to journal to work through it. As I was journaling, I identified that I was getting cranky, but that was only the result of whatever it was that I was feeling. I then discovered that I was overwhelmed and anxious. I accepted that these feelings were present and let myself experience both of them. I even let myself feel a bit cranky, because I knew I had the tools to work through this. I began to process these feelings and realized that I was overwhelmed because we had to get our new house painted, our current home packed up, and everything moved within a few weeks. Feeling overwhelmed made me feel anxious about getting all of the work completed. However, when I reflected on these feelings, I recognized that I was overwhelmed because I was putting too much pressure on myself. Without even realizing it, I had made up rules in my head to have every room in our new house painted as well as everything organized and put up within the next three weeks. Obviously, that was a lot to get done in only a short amount of time. I decided that a better, more realistic plan would be to get the two main rooms painted, and to move all other stuff into the spare room of the new house until I had time to put it away in an organized fashion. Whew, what a relief! If I had not worked through these steps, I would probably have remained cranky for a while longer. Knowing that I tend to put rules on myself, I forecasted that I may do this again with the next big change in my life. So, I will try to be aware of this tendency and work through my feelings with each big change.
It is likely that at some point in our lives we have all felt out of control. Once we learn to recognize and manage feelings that are present in our relationship with ourselves, we will be better equipped to do this in our relationships with others. A highly developed EQ can give us the edge that will spark success both in our professional and personal lives. And, since EQ is a learned skill, we all have a clean slate in which we can build and expand it within ourselves if we choose to do so.
