Emotional Intelligence: Self-Awareness
Hello friends,
How are you feeling today?
When faced with this common question we often choose from a short list of feelings that we are familiar with. However, if we drill down there are in fact 72 feelings that make up our emotional landscape.
Emotions form an integral part of one’s self. However most of us don’t have the capacity to recognize, define, understand and regulate them. We spend our entire lives interacting with other humans, therefore it is essential to understand our emotions as well as the emotions of people around us in order to cultivate healthy intimate, social, and professional relationships. However, despite its great impact on human coexistence, children and adults have little to no training on emotional recognition. We continue to spend years learning subjects we will never use in our life (looking at you Latin) but we do not spend any time learning about the one subject that we encounter on a daily basis.
Emotional intelligence is the capacity to observe, analyze and label your emotions as well as the emotions of the people we meet. Individuals with increased emotional intelligence have a deeper understanding of themselves and their environment, form stronger interpersonal relationships and are better able to navigate stressful life events, leading to happier and healthier lives. Highly emotional intelligent people have a wide emotional vocabulary and have the ability to effectively articulate their emotions. This capacity helps us label and regulate our feelings, thoughts and actions. Guiding us when we have deep conversations with our loved ones, deal with problems at work, manage our children when they are having a tantrum, and to have empathy for others.
Emotional Intelligence is made up of 5 components:
I will spend the next few weeks covering each one of them. This week we will focus on self-awareness.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the ability to truly know yourself. It requires a commitment to dig deep, get uncomfortable and unearth all the qualities and attributes that make you you. Since we are always evolving it is often a life-long pursuit.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”
Some of the qualities of self-aware people are confidence, resilience, wisdom and empathy. Self-awareness is a major contributor to happiness, success and long-lasting meaningful relationships. In order to build self-awareness and continually learn and grow it is important to keep an open-mind. Make a daily habit of connecting with yourself through mindfulness, which is the act of being present and paying attention to yourself and your surroundings. You can keep a log of how you feel and act. By doing so you can analyze your response to big and small occurrences in your life. This will provide a pattern of emotional reactions and behaviors and help you identify opportunities for growth and for change in your life. What thoughts, feelings, behaviors, actions are serving you and which are hurting you? We often feel that we are at the mercy of our environment and many things are out of our control. Once we realize we have a choice we can work towards changing ourselves and our environment if it is no longer serving us. Once you have identified what that is, direct your energy towards the things that make you happy and are good for you, and change the things that are not. There may be some parts of your life that make you both happy and sad, such as a relationship with a loved one. Recognize and bring awareness to what specifically makes you sad within that part of your life and take action to change it. Identifying and taking ownership of the part we play in our life and our relationships has tremendous impact on all of our experiences.
“Every human has four endowments – self-awareness, conscience, independent will, and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom….The power to choose, to respond, to change.”
Below are some questions I’ve developed to help you become more self-aware. Answer them honestly and take note of any feelings that come up as you answer each question.
What are your values?
How are you living in alignment with your values?
What does success mean to you?
What does happiness mean to you?
What aspects of your current life make you happy?
What aspects of your current life do you want to change?
What are your stressors?
How do you react under stress?
What are your triggers?
How do you react when triggered?
What are your strengths?
How do you utilize your strengths?
What are your weaknesses?
How do you see yourself?
What are five words you use to describe yourself?
What type of person do you want to be?
What is the difference between the person you are and the person you want to be?
How do others see you?
What are five words that people use to describe you?
What is the difference between how people see you and how you see yourself?
Self-awareness is the key to living our truest most fulfilling life. It takes work but it pays dividends.
Thank you for reading! May everyone stay happy, healthy, safe and sane.
With gratitude,
Polina
