Here's how you can enhance your decision-making process when starting a career using Emotional Intelligence.

Assess yourself. Understand your emotional strengths and weaknesses. Recognize biases that might cloud your judgment. Develop empathy to better understand colleagues’ perspectives. Emotional intelligence helps you stay calm under pressure, making more rational and informed decisions. Use these skills to navigate the complexities of starting a new career and building professional relationships.

Post-layoff, resilience begins with acceptance. It's vital to see the layoff as an event, not a measure of self-worth. Allow yourself to experience emotions like sadness or anger, recognizing them as natural, but don't let them control your actions.

Starting a career with emotional intelligence is powerful. First, know yourself. Understand your emotions and strengths. Recognize biases—unmask them and make clearer decisions. Success in your hands!

Start by understanding your own emotions and reactions. Recognize your strengths, weaknesses, and triggers. This self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence and can guide you in making career decisions that align with your values and capabilities.

self-Awareness: Understand Your Emotions: Regularly reflect on your emotions and how they influence your thoughts and behaviors. Recognize what excites you, what you are passionate about, and what stresses you. Identify Strengths and Weaknesses: Assess your skills and areas for improvement. This self-awareness helps in making career choices that align with your strengths and address your weaknesses. Self-Regulation: Manage Stress and Anxiety: Develop techniques to manage stress, such as mindfulness, meditation, or exercise. Being calm and collected aids in making rational decisions. Stay Flexible: Be open to adjusting your plans and exploring new opportunities. Flexibility can lead to discovering unexpected and fulfilling career paths.

Unfortunately or fortunately, we human beings don't have a reset button when it comes to dealing with past experiences. Our past can be a valuable asset in building our professional careers, but it can also lead to prejudices that hinder our future success. In my opinion, the best way to make the most of our current perspective is to promote critical thinking skills. Asking questions like 'what if' or 'what if not' can significantly help prevent cognitive biases, especially in our professional relationships. While this process may seem challenging, it ultimately makes us more mindful and effective colleagues.

We all have biases that can cloud our judgement. By acknowledging these biases, you can make more objective decisions. This involves being open to different perspectives and challenging your own beliefs.

Isolation isn't the answer after a layoff. Reach out to your network for emotional and practical support. It's a strength to seek help, showing you're ready to take charge of your future.

Empathy allows you to understand and share the feelings of others. In a career context, this can help you build strong relationships, work effectively in teams, and better serve clients or customers.

Effective stress management is essential for emotional resilience. Activities like exercise and meditation can alleviate stress, fostering a clearer mindset for your career's next phase.

Stress can impair decision-making. Emotional intelligence involves managing your emotions, particularly in stressful situations. Techniques might include mindfulness, deep breathing, or simply taking a break when needed.

Level stress control is essential to maintain self-control and optimal balance in performance. Regardless of the method we use, whether practicing relaxation, meditation, regular exercise, have nourishing social relationships, etc. It is important to work on changing the meaning we give to what causes us stress. By working on changing the meaning to a more positive and constructive one, we will change the stress reaction in us. We can also work on changing the reaction we have to a situation that we know traditionally causes us stress. By changing the reaction, we also change the stress pattern that is associated with that situation.

An example of reflecting often is setting time aside either after major events, such as an interview, a Quarterly Business Review, or a fire drill and thinking about it while it’s still fresh. This is a great group exercise, but can be done independently as well. Perform a debrief, postmortem, lessons learned and ask yourself questions like: -What went well, specifically what should we replicate? -What are areas for opportunity? -What were the challenges or obstacles that could have been improved? -What should have not happened or be eliminated going forward? In terms of emotional intelligence, either by yourself or in a group, give everyone a safe space. No calling out people, just reflecting on actions and focusing on the process.

Regular reflection can help you learn from your experiences and make better decisions in the future. Consider keeping a journal or setting aside quiet time each day for reflection.

Constructive feedback can provide valuable insights into your performance and areas for improvement. Don’t be afraid to ask colleagues, mentors, or supervisors for their feedback.

Emotional intelligence also involves motivation and social skills. Stay motivated by setting and working towards career goals. Develop your social skills to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, and lead others.

When starting a professional career, it is important to keep in mind that EQ is as important as IQ. You not only have to demonstrate academic competence put into practice but also know how to put your social skills into practice. This requires leaving your comfort zone and confronting new situations in which you must interact with people on a level that you are not familiar with. Be aware of using EI in your social interactions by acting with self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and deploying your social skills. In the end, continued effort will generate habits and emotional competences that will be very valuable throughout your professional career.

First, be aware of your emotions and how they influence your choices. Reflect on what truly excites and motivates you, not just what seems practical. Listen to your gut, but balance it with rational analysis. Engage with mentors and colleagues to gather diverse perspectives and learn from their experiences. Practice empathy by considering how your decisions impact others. Stay open to feedback and be ready to adapt. By integrating EI into your decision-making process, you'll make more balanced, insightful, and fulfilling career choices.