Tune up your EQ

You were going to lose weight, your determination to control your temper was set in concrete, you vowed to get to work on time, you promised yourself that you’d watch your language more closely this year and make full use of 5 Little Known Ways To Improve Your Emotional Intelligence
The first month isn’t even over and your resolutions are unravelling faster than a badly frayed sweater.

If you’re not doing so well, it’s tied up with how well you manage your emotions.

Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatsiz and Annie McKee, best selling authors of “Primal Leadership” highlight that our ability to manage ourself critically affects our quality of life. They argue that a family of competencies called self management plays a key role.

The self management competency includes these six behaviours.

1. Emotional self control, our ability to manage disruptive emotions and impulses
2. Optimism, persistence in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks.
3. Transparency, being open to others about our feelings, beliefs and actions.
4. Adaptability, the extent to which we are able to respond effectively to change.
5. Achievement, our ability to improve or meet a standard of excellence.
6. Initiative, our readiness to seize opportunities.

Can you see how each of these behaviours affects your New Year’s Resolution Scorecard?

If your resolutions are letting you down, it’s because you are letting your self down.

The great news is that it’s not too late to get back on track. Use this list of six self management behaviours to help you pinpoint what you need to do differently.

Be honest with yourself. Were your resolutions realistic? Have you lost track of why you set them in the first place? If your why? is compelling enough, you’ll find the resources to keep on trying.

Remember that your path to self improvement is always under construction.

What’s Next?

1. How are you doing?

2. What do you need to stop doing?

3. What do you need to do less of?

4. What do you need to do more of?

This article is part of the Emotional Intelligence 101 series about the fundamentals of EQ. Use the Tune Up Your Emotional Intelligence Workbook and improve your Emotional Intelligence.

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This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.