Leadership Starts with Self-Awareness
Do your emotions get the better of you when you are just trying to navigate through your daily life? I know mine do, and even as an expert in this field, I have to constantly be aware of what's going on around me and inside me, what's happening emotionally.
Today I want to continue our conversation around emotional intelligence, by helping you develop self-awareness.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of what's going on for you emotionally, in the moment, and then to use that information to manage your responses. But it all starts with awareness.
There are four quadrants that we work through in emotional intelligence. The first one is self-awareness, second is self-management, and then we move into the social competencies of social awareness and relationship management.
It means awareness of self. The first step is to be able to give yourself space in your day to stop and notice what it is that you're going through. What are you experiencing?
The second thing to do is then to give that emotion a name. So, the first thing to do is stop, notice, then give it a name. Name which particular emotion that you're experiencing. Why? So that you can then navigate it, employing a strategy for that particular emotion.
There are over 2000 words in the English language alone that describes or could describe the sensation, the emotion that you're experiencing in that moment. Being able to give it your name, whatever you feel it is — so then as you build the strategies for navigating that, you can go, okay, I'm experiencing this, so therefore I need to think this way.
The second part of self-awareness is accurate self-assessment. It's being able to know what your strengths and areas for development are. It's being real with yourself.
The third part of the self-awareness quadrant is the area of personal power. The ability to know that everything is going to be okay, that I've got everything within me and around me to be able to get ahead in life. It's all about self-confidence and it's the antidote to that self-doubt and that negative self-talk that goes on.
Self-awareness is step one, so I invite you and encourage you to take step one with me this month. I'll see you then.
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