4 Step Process to Master Self-Awareness

Emotional intelligence (EQ) plays an important role in shaping your career or profession or business. The best part is that we can learn and master Emotional Intelligence based on lot of researches that have been carried out to find out how we can develop the Emotional Intelligence. Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist and a science journalist, better known as father of emotional intelligence, has explained in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (25th Anniversary Edition), on How To Manage Your Emotions At Work & Why EQ Is More Valuable Than IQ

Emotional intelligence?consists of five elements: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. It can be applied to meet goals and targets, as well as create a happier and healthier working culture. In this series, we are going to master Emotional Intelligence by mastering all 5 elements. As part of this series, first let’s begin with the first element of Emotional Intelligence

Self-Awareness

"Develop Self-Awareness and Stop Lying to Yourself"

We all lie to ourselves. We are great at deceiving ourselves, because we don’t really know ourselves. We blame others for our challenges, even when we’re the primary cause.

It’s not easy to get to know yourself. Most people don’t want to know the truth. That’s why distractions like food, TV, and the internet are so popular. It’s easier to be distracted than to face the truth.

It is time to stop lying to yourself and start to master Self-awareness that will help you understand yourself better. So, Self-awareness is the ability of an individual to understand himself fully. It is?the ability to identify and connect your emotions, thoughts, values, beliefs, and behaviors.?

Once you become self-aware, you can capitalize on your strengths and work around your weaknesses to create a life that truly satisfies you. Now let’s master Self-awareness using this 4step process:

1.????Goals set your direction

Set your goals and that will decide how you should spend your time reach that goal. By setting goals, you will learn about yourself. If you have challenge in setting goals or can’t decide on any goals, ask yourself what part of your life needs the most work. Set a goal in that area of your life and stick with it. Your goals don’t need to be perfect. Just decide on one that will enhance your life in some way.

Once you know your goals, it’s necessary to figure out what’s important and then measure those things. For example if you want write a book or novel, then you could measure how many pages you write each day and how many hours you spend writing.

2.????Track your day with Journaling?

Having set your goals alone won’t help you to achieve the desired results. You need to take actions that will bring in the desired results. Plan your day and track it with Journalling. Write down the activities on hourly basis to measure how qualitatively you have spent your day.

?A typical journal entry might look like:

• “6:00-7:00 PM: 20 minutes watching TV. 20 minutes exercising. 20 minutes working on my website.

?When you analyze your day, you might be surprised to discover how little time you’re actually working toward your goals. Total up the amount of time that you were actually doing something productive. Be honest!

?3.????View from others point of view

Try to view yourself on the basis how you view others if they execute same goals. This is extremely challenging. Only few of us have an accurate idea of how others view us.

• Think about conversations you’ve had. Imagine someone else said the same things you said. What would you think about them?
• Think about how you handle common situations. Think about how you behave when you’re tired, stuck in traffic, excited, and so on. Imagine someone else behaving that way. What would you think of them?

Take some time and determine what your greatest flaws are. What are you not good at? In what situations do you struggle? What are your weak points?

4.????Get insights from your friends

Friends can be of great help to you and ask them for advice as you want to become more self-aware. Tell them to be brutally honest in describing your strengths, and your weaknesses. Take all efforts to convince them that you’ll be grateful for their honesty.

Though Self-awareness is available to all, today only select few of them pursued it. You can manoeuvre around your weaknesses. You can take full-advantage of your strengths. You learn how to manage yourself and understand what makes you tick.

These 4 steps will help you to become aware of yourself. Once you become aware of yourself, it becomes easier to be successful.?

EQ is becoming more relevant in today’s highly competitive world and we will be focusing on Self-regulation next in this series to help you to master the Emotional Intelligence that will transform you as a Successful leader.