Emotional intelligence is our emotional capability, also known as a person’s capacity that leads the relationship and us. Emotional intelligence consists of self-awareness, self-management, social skills, and social awareness.
Self-awareness is the art of going deep inside you to get to know what you desire and what is motivating us. It is composed of self-awareness, self-assessment, and self-confidence.
What is self-awareness?
A famous psychologist proposed the definition of self-awareness:
Self-awareness is the ability to focus on yourself, thoughts, actions, and emotions that do and don’t align with internal standards. If you are self-aware, you can evaluate yourself, manage your feelings, correctly understand how other people think about you, and align your values and behavior.
Self-aware people can interpret their actions, thoughts, and feelings. It’s a unique skill, as most people’s emotion-driven behavior depends on their situations. By developing self-awareness, you allow yourself to assess and change the effectiveness and growth accordingly.
What is emotional self-awareness?
Emotional self-awareness understands emotions and their effects on your life. However, I will step back on the definition to explain the importance of identifying your feelings. From my experience, it can be challenging to understand what people think or feel in a specific situation.
It’s challenging to speak about emotions and feelings. We want to show our weaknesses to the world and avoid labels. However, people who positively deal with their feelings and explore the options instead of ignoring the situations can build very successful careers.
When people don’t feel comfortable bringing themselves out in front of someone, they end up adding such feelings that result in burnout and stress. These are some of the consequences of not handling your emotions accurately. In other words, these are the results of poor emotional self-awareness.
The main problem is when you don’t understand or identify your emotions, then how can you know the impact they can pose on your life? Once you understand your emotions and feelings, you can detect their effect on your performance. Identify the things that give you strength and the ones that are giving you stress.
What makes emotional self-awareness so important?
Once you become aware of the things happening in your mind, you will be able to change them. Self-awareness of emotions is essential, and it provides you with an understanding of the situation and the changes you can make to get benefits.
For example, you can benefit from understanding what is going on in your mind and the buttons that are triggering your specific reactions. Besides, emotional self-awareness allows you to understand your situations and when emotions like frustration, anger, and fear start controlling you. These are negative for your happiness.
Therefore, understanding how specific emotions will react to adverse events is essential.
Benefits of self-awareness of emotions
After discussing the basics, you must have a clear idea of self-awareness of emotions. So, let’s discuss some main benefits of self-awareness of emotions.
Unfortunately, our life doesn’t always turn out how we want them to. It is alright to feel upset when such circumstances occur. The main thing here is to observe how you feel. Consider your feelings, their source, and how they affect you physically and mentally. Then understand and listen to your real feelings.
It’s a crucial step as it helps you understand how to overcome such feelings of disappointment. It will not make you happy about the disappointments but will aid in dealing with such situations better and more effectively.
Sometimes disappointment can be the result of our high expectations. Here are some questions that will help you with more emotional self-awareness:
- Can you have some experience from the disappointments?
- Were you naive in hindsight?
- Can you lower your expectations before getting disappointed?
These questions will benefit in dealing with your high expectations in the future.
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Better response to the factor outside your control
It involves situations like lousy customer service, difficult coworkers, and worse traffic jams. You can get into a bad situation because of such uncontrollable factors. Such situations are usually a part of life, but they can be stressful when you feel you have no power over them.
It is a debatable thing as to discuss if we should be emotional or logical in such situations. However, the essential issue is to be aware of our emotions and whether we should be emotional or rational in these situations.
For instance, you might find it a natural response to being rude to your annoying and difficult coworker. You undoubtedly have honest opinions and emotions, but it’s essential to consider how they will affect others. It will also impact you, and you can be in trouble for throwing a fit.
The better approach in such situations is to know your emotions. Why that person’s behavior is making you upset? Find the logical way to deal with such problems. Find a way that makes you less emotional in such cases.
It will take a little more effort, but undeniably better for the long-term results. A fit with a rude coworker will satisfy you, but maintaining a calm self by taking control of your emotions will benefit you in the long term.
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Predicting the response of others
The most crucial benefit of emotional self-awareness is being aware of your emotions. It includes acknowledgment, acceptance, identification, and reflection on the feeling we are experiencing in life. Though it’s a complicated and challenging process, forming a connection with our emotions is vital.
The process also improves our forecasting feelings. Besides, you can use this ability to control not only your emotions but others as well. As we better understand our feelings, we also understand how others feel about us.
We also realize that the other person could have the same feelings as us in a specific situation. By making yourself aware of your feelings, you put yourself in a better position than others.
For example, you and your friend get late for a concert. It’s natural to become impatient or angry. There are maximum chances that your friend also has the same feelings. He also wants to open up about this, like stupid red lights or traffic.
Instead of directly jumping on the negative side position, you to have a positive attitude together. You can also have a positive side of the situation by having a positive attitude.
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Positive Psychology
Positive psychology is the scientific study of human emotions. It’s the main object of interest and the so-called emotions like hope, happiness, optimism, and joy, among others, instead of focusing on human diseases.
Experts say that positive emotions play many roles in life, not just related to the individual’s well-being. It benefits the physical, intellectual, and social resources we can use to overcome a threat or when we are presented with an opportunity. In the same way, the psychologist describes the work on happiness and creativity that is created by the flow concept. The flow state causes the individual to be wholly involved in their task. It helps them reach an entirely focused mental state.
Positive emotions promote mental expansion, creativity, and tolerance, stimulating new experiences and ideas.
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Higher emotional intelligence
It would help if you did an accurate self-assessment to boost your emotional intelligence. In simple words, everyone needs to have a clear understanding of how their feelings are affecting others’ moods and behaviors.
People must know their weaknesses and strengths to benefit their emotional intelligence. What are you good at? Which situations make your emotions out of control? You can use many methods to know its answers, but let’s discuss them later.
High emotional intelligence will create an environment around you where you can expect honest feedback from the people around you. This constructive feedback will be good for the future if you accept it for what it is. Even though your emotions make you angry, you will see the positive side when you get them with an open mind. In short, it will be a win situation for you.
Tips to benefit the emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence fuels your performance in both your personal life and the workplace. It will help you with self-control, understanding, and management of the emotions that accelerate your life.
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Observe your feelings
In the hectic and busy schedules of our life, we often need to remember to keep in touch with our emotions. To reconnect with your feelings, set a few timers for a day to take a small break to observe how you are feeling. Take a deep breath and pay attention to the sensation or physical feeling your body is showing you. The more you practice, the more you will get better at it.
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Question your opinion
We live in a hyper-connected world where we easily fall into each other’s opinions. It’s a state where people with the same viewpoint reinforce your views. Take time to know the other side of the story and challenge your opinions even if you are sure you are right. It will make you more accepter of others’ opinions.
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Pay attention to your behavior
When practicing emotional awareness, notice the changes in your behavior. Observe your reaction when you have certain emotions or how emotional awareness affects your day-to-day life. Once you understand how you react to certain conditions, it will become easy to manage your feelings.
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A lifetime process
Remember that emotional intelligence is a lifetime process. You continuously require and develop continual improvement. It’s a lifetime task.
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Don’t ignore the negative
Reflecting on negative feelings is of the same importance as positive feelings. When you understand why you get negative emotions, you will become a full time rounded individual. It will enable you to deal with the negative issues you face in the future.
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Be responsible for your feelings
Nobody is responsible for the way you feel or behave. Once you start taking responsibility for how you think, it will positively impact every part of your life.
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Take a long breath
Life is all about experiencing different unexpected situations now and then, and it makes you stressed daily. To manage these situations with a positive attitude, take a breath. To avoid the outburst and order your emotions, take time out to refresh yourself or get some fresh air or refreshment.
When you take some time to relax, you will better understand how to respond to that situation.
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Celebrate the positivity
The critical part of emotional intelligence is celebrating the joyous moments of your life. People who appreciate the positive moments are more resilient and have fulfilling relationships that move them past difficulties.
Conclusion
Developing emotional self-awareness is sometimes challenging, but it is also essential. Besides, you can set it at any time in life; it requires perseverance, commitment, and willpower.
Be attentive and take care of your emotions in your life. As soon as you realize you are becoming emotionally driven, start questioning yourself. Consider that you don’t have to be alone on this journey. It’s an essential process that everyone has to go through sooner or later in their life.
FAQ’s
What is emotional self-awareness?
Emotional self-awareness understands your emotions and their effect on daily life and performance. You know your feelings and why it’s happening and why its hurts or how to help what you are trying to do.
How do you use emotional self-awareness?
Here are a few steps to get benefits from emotional self-awareness:
- Keep an emotional dairy
- Observe your behavior
- Know which thing triggers your reaction
- Develop a vocabulary for your feelings
- Ask yourself questions
- Set an awareness trigger
- Observe the effects of your behavior
- Don’t treat your feelings as good or bad
What are the emotional self-awareness examples?
It is aware of the things that can trigger your reactions or emotions. I can accurately describe the feelings I feel at the moment. Being able to differentiate between good and bad.
What are Emotional Self-Awareness examples?
- I’m aware of what might trigger my emotions or reactions.
- I can accurately describe the specific feelings.
- I feel at any moment.
- I can quickly distinguish between emotions like anger, disgust, and shame.
Why is Emotional Self-Awareness crucial?
Emotional self-awareness helps us make better decisions in life. It also boosts our self-confidence, which helps in communicating with better and clear intentions. It also makes us understand the situation from different perspectives and build better relationships.
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