Stephen Blakesley

Self-Awareness is one of the four pillars of Emotional Intelligence. The other three are Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Social Management. In my view, you cannot be emotionally intelligent unless you are Self-Aware.

Although Self-Awareness encompasses many things, being aware of your own emotions and feelings is the first and most important step to becoming Emotionally Intelligent.

We often talk about how we feel and through any day, we experience many different feelings and emotions. These two words are sometimes used interchangeably, but there are differences. If we understand the differences, it can help us be more self-aware.

Emotions are the external expressions of an internal stimulus. Core emotions are Fear, Sadness, Happiness, Anger, Surprise, Disgust, Trust and Anticipation. Each of these emotions have different levels of intensity. For instance, a lower level of intensity for the emotion of Trust is acceptance and a higher level might be adoration.

Feelings are internal and lower levels of emotions like the example above, you might be feeling accepted because of a display of the emotion of Trust exhibited by your boss. Or, you be felling pensive because of the emotion of sadness, due to a friends death.

On the other hand, emotions, because they are often externally expressed by running, for instance, if your are afraid of snakes and you just saw one, or slamming you fist into your desk because you are so angry are easier to recognize

So lets begin building self-awareness with a three step process:

1. Begin the day with a commitment to identify emotions you experience.
2. Write down, in a journal, what emotions your experience throughout the day.
3. Identify the “Triggers” that release the emotions.

About “Triggers,” these are events the release emotions. For example, you are “cut-off” in traffic and have to slam on the brakes to avoid an accident and you get angry. The trigger is: an unexpected and seemingly total disregard for safety. Knowing what triggers your emotions is a hefty piece of self-awareness.

Once you have successfully identified several triggers, use these strategies to mitigate negative emotions initiated by them. Let’s take anger, for instance. Someone says something that angers you. What should you do?

1. Recognize the emotion for what it is
2. Pause, take a deep breath or two
3. Consider, the intent of the other person
4. Respond with in a gracious and understanding way by asking for clarification.

Recognize, Pause, Consider, and Respond works, try it. Of course, it is not the right response to all emotions, For instance, if you see a two-ton boulder racing toward you and you experience the emotion of Fear, you should eliminate steps 2 and 3. Go to step for and run, as fast as you can.

Tags: EI, Emotional Intelligence, EQ, EQ Vs IQ, Self-Awareness

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Culture, Emotional Intelligence, Management, Productivity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.