Your emotional intelligence holds the key to targeting your goals and managing your schedule this year. Photo: iStock.
Travis Bradberry explains why developing your emotional intelligence will help you keep those New Year resolutions that can otherwise fail before summer is out.
For many of us, 2024 begins with a promise – a promise that this year we will accomplish that which has eluded us.
Often it’s the everyday things that prove most difficult – managing your schedule, treating people the way you ought to, and keeping things in perspective when chaos is at hand.
The sad truth is that nearly 80 per cent of us will fall off the resolution bandwagon by the beginning of February, and by this time next year, a mere 5 per cent of us will have succeeded in reaching the goals we set ourselves.
There are two reasons why we’re so bad at this. The first is that we bite off more than we can chew. It may seem reasonable to pick up three or four new skills, but that’s an expectation the mind can’t execute. When we try to develop too many new skills at once, they become competing priorities that leave us distracted, discouraged and overwhelmed.
The second reason is that our emotions have a nasty habit of hijacking our behaviour. Without a strong ability to recognise and manage our emotions as they occur, old habits are sure to die hard.
The good news is that you can address both problems and make the changes you desire by resolving this year to develop a single skill – emotional intelligence (EQ).
Piles of research over the past two decades have shown that EQ is likely the single most powerful success factor yet discovered, affecting everything from performance at work to mood and quality of life. Emotions are the root of all human behaviour. Whether we’re aware of it or not, the motivation behind every action is inherently emotional. Emotional intelligence ensures effective communication between the rational and emotional centres of your brain.
As you improve your EQ, you improve your ability to understand and control the primary motivations for your behaviour, which reaps dividends in everything you do every day.
Emotional intelligence is powerful and efficient – it allows you to focus your energy on a single skill with tremendous results. Emotional intelligence is the ”something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behaviour, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive results.
The following overall competencies are developed through EQ.
Self-awareness: Your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of them as they happen.
Self-management: Your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and positively direct your behaviour.
Social awareness: Your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on.
Relationship management: Your ability to use awareness of your emotions and others’ emotions to manage interactions successfully. While working on your EQ will improve a lot of different skills, there are five in particular that people tend to set goals around when the year changes.
Time management: In this age of abundance, time is the one thing nobody has enough of. Creating a good schedule is a very rational thing, but sticking to that schedule is decidedly emotional.
Many of us start every day with the best intentions to manage our time wisely, but then we receive a complicated email from a co-worker, a consuming phone call from a friend, or otherwise get sidetracked until our well-laid plans go up in flames.
When the distractions are your own, sticking to a schedule requires self-management. When the needs of others try to impede upon your plans, it takes effective relationship management to finesse the relationship while ensuring your priorities are still addressed.
Embracing change: Show me somebody who claims to love change, and I’ll show you a well-intentioned liar. Those who apply well-honed self-awareness and self-management skills tolerate change much more successfully than others. Those most averse to change, but who possess great self-awareness and self-management skills, even set aside a small amount of time each week to list possible changes and what actions they can take in response.
Assertiveness: The most emotionally intelligent response is often one where you openly and directly express yourself. Emotional intelligence doesn’t allow lashing out or making yourself into someone else’s doormat. To be assertive, you have to know what you’re feeling, read the other party accurately, and express yourself in a way that garners the best result.
Making great decisions: It has taken the world far too long to wake up to the fact that emotions simply cannot, and should not, be ignored when making decisions. However, you have to be aware of the emotions you’re feeling, know why you’re having them, and see how they factor into the situation at hand.
Giving outstanding presentations: Few things strike primal fear in us like standing under the spotlight in a room full of people. That’s why top presenters’ most inspiring presentations are often the ones they deliver to themselves.
A bit of positive self-talk – reminding yourself of all the times you have succeeded and how qualified you are to speak on the topic – enables an effective speaker to use his or her performance anxiety to sharpen their focus and make them more articulate.
If you think that’s silly, then you probably haven’t tried it. EQ doesn’t just make you aware of your emotions, it equips you with strategies for keeping them from holding you back.
Give improving your EQ a real shot in 2024. You’ll be surprised where it takes you.
Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the co-founder of TalentSmart. His books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. He can be contacted at TalentSmart.com. This article first appeared on the TalentSmart website.
