And, here we are again, more assessment/reflection work! We’ve been asked to complete an assessment and then read the book Emotional Intelligence, 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. I have to admit, I avoided this assignment. Mostly because I knew I wasn’t going to do “well”. I’m not great at controlling my emotions. This is something I’ve known about my self for quite some time and it was reflected in a few of the comments I received in my multi-rater feedback. My scores further confirmed the work I need to do:
My scores for the personal competencies –
Self Awareness: 70
“Self-awareness is your ability to accurately percieve your own emotions in the moment and understand your tendencies across situations.” (p. 24)
Self Management: 61
“Self-management is what happens when you act — or do not act.” (p. 32)
Personal Competence: 70
My scores for the social competencies –
Social Awareness: 83
“Social awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them.” (p. 38)
Relationship Management: 75
“Relationship Management is your ability to use your awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully.” (p. 44)
Social Competence: 79
The book then directs the users to choose on EQ skill to work on. Then we had to identify three strategies to practice.
I chose to work on Self Management first, as I received the lowest score in this section. The three strategies I chose to work on are:
- Set aside some time in the day for problem solving. “A 15 minute period each day where you turn off your phone, walk away from your computer, and take time to just think, is a great way to make sure your decisions aren’t muddled by your emotions.” (p. 116)
- Take control of self talk.
- Turn “I always” or “I never” into “just this time“, or “sometimes“.
- Replace judgemental statements like “I’m an idiot” with factual ones like “I made a mistake“.
- Accept responsibility for your actions and no one else’s.
- Breath right & Count to ten (I’ve combined two strategies here because I believe the go hand in hand. Likewise, the sleep on it strategy is the same idea, just on a larger time scale.)
The last strategy is something I’ve been practicing for years, and it has served me well, when I remember to use it.
The strategy of controlling self talk is something that I’ve just recently become aware of. The book mentions that “the average person has about 50,000 thoughts every day.” (p. 117). It wasn’t until I started really paying attention to those thoughts that I realized how not nice I am to myself. A few weeks back I started really tuning in and processing what I my internal voice was saying, and wow, I would never speak to anyone else that way. I’ve begun asking why it’s OK for me to talk to myself that way.
The strategy of setting aside some time is something I love to do, but rarely enforce. Meditation is a great way to spend 15 minutes a day, but I often don’t think to do it until I’m in bed and any meditation will inevitably end in snoring. Walking our foster dogs is something that I enjoy, but I only walk the neighborhood once a week or so when we aren’t housing a dog (approaching our 2 year, dog-free mark). Bottom line is, I need to find more opportunities to practice implementing time to think.