Using Emotional Intelligence To Improve Self-reflection for a Better Life

It has been noted by research that professionals such as counselors can actually learn more about themselves through self-reflecting.

While the definitions of actual self-reflection vary, today I will offer you mine:

Definitions of Self-Reflection

"The ability and time taken to think about emotions that are actively in the moment and past memories."

The definition is broadly based, and it's only a small footprint to what we should be doing as business leaders to actively engage in emotional intelligence.

At the end of the day, we can pretty much self-reflect on anything—even on the food we eat and our favorite Netflix series.

The choice of self-reflecting subjects is vast.

However, the importance lies in understanding that during many interactions we have as humans, those moments can open up other emotions that either increase or decrease our happiness levels.

While I won't give you a full picture of how we can measure our happiness levels, let's say we score it on a 1 to 10 range.

If we measure that one session of a business meeting that we led, and we score ourselves a 7, then the ideal is on the self-reflection side—how much more can be improved in our conscious performance ranking.

The choice and option are ours to make when it comes to self-reflection—hence why we call it self-reflection and not employer reflection.

When you think about it in a broader sense, we are actively always self-reflecting and using some elements of unconscious bias in every single interaction we make with another human.

Life is funny like that. Now the confusing part is that due to the complexities of life, we don't always see the positive side of self-reflection, as we don't always understand our emotions—so how can we positively engage with them?

The answer is that even the basic definition of EQ does not lend well to how our brains think; we simply still, to this day, don't precisely know how the human brain works.

That said, we do know a fair amount about the two most impending forces on earth—stress and anxiety—they are real and strong—and don't wait for no one—they will come and attack when you least expect them.

So, the golden mystery question is how we appreciate the knowledge gained in Emotional Intelligence to lead to better self-reflection?

Some would say just be real with your emotions and feelings, and certainly don't hide from them.

I wish the answer to this question was as simple as that—however, it's not, and to be honest, I am not sure I have the magic answer.

I would say, though, that in my humble journey in life, what I have learned is that if we can slow our thoughts down through exercises and spend more time reading away from social media, for instance, we can actually increase both our performance in the art of self-reflection and emotional intelligence.

Of course, I don't pretend to know it all, as all our lives are different yet those storms of stress and anxiety threaten us all.

Big advice—don't be scared to lock yourself in a room and switch off your phone for an hour and learn to self-reflect on every single element of your life as possible—not because you are a perfectionist—more to the fact it's actually fun and interesting.