Increasing Your Emotional Intelligence: Balance
In the first 3 installments of this blog series, we looked at how to increase your self-awareness by expanding your emotional vocabulary, practicing body awareness, and soliciting feedback. Now we are moving to the ‘Self-Management’ quadrant of Daniel Goleman’s model of Emotional Intelligence. The competencies here include emotional balance, adaptability, initiative, achievement orientation, and a positive outlook. Let us start with emotional balance.
Emotional balance refers to our ability to remain calm and respond with intention, even during moments of heightened stress or anxiety. This is easier said than done. We all have triggers that are capable of knocking us off balance. For me, it might be someone driving recklessly or being too rough with my guitar. When we are overwhelmed with a particular emotion it can be very difficult to use good judgement. Here are two things you can do to develop a greater level of self-control even when facing adversity.
Step 4: Stay on the Path
Imagine you are walking down a path in the woods. Ahead of you, the path stretches long, straight and comfortably wide as far as the eye can see. You notice that the center of the path is especially comfortable and it becomes a bit more rough as you move to the outer edges. To the right and left of the path are nothing but thorny briar patches, and beyond that is a dark and foreboding forest. As long as you are on your path, you feel comfortable and confident.
Now imagine a flaming wagon full of manure comes barreling towards you. You have to jump into the briars to avoid it. Oh yeah, and there’s a bee’s nest in the brush right where you landed. Do you:
A) Sit there in the briar patch trying to figure out who was responsible for this atrocity and how you might exact your revenge.
B) Get back on your path, collect yourself, and determine the best course of action.
In this metaphor, it seems silly to try and problem solve while getting scratched by thorns and stung by bees, but that is exactly what we are doing when we fail to regulate ourselves before responding to an emotionally charged situation. The path represents the range of emotional experience that is manageable for us. The briars are where we find ourselves in fight or flight, and the flaming wagon of manure represents any event that triggers an extreme emotional response.
The moral of the story is this: In these moments when we get knocked off the path, the most important thing we can do is to get back on the path.
The tools of self-regulation, or getting back on the path, are many and can be as simple as breathing or walking. You might try imagining a pleasant scene or smell. Whatever approach works for you is fine. The key skill here is noticing when you’ve been knocked off the path and being intentional about getting back on it before you make any important decisions (like choosing to send that passive aggressive email).
Step 5: Do Hard Things
That’s it. Do hard things. Take appropriate risks. Avoid spending so much time in your comfort zone that everything else becomes scary. The reward is confidence and a larger playing field for the game of life.
In our next installment we will continue with a few simple steps to improve adaptability, initiative, and positive outlook. Until then, feel free to keep practicing the first 5 steps towards increasing your emotional intelligence:
Self-Awareness - Expand your emotional vocabulary
More Self-Awareness - Tuning into your body
Accurate Self-Assessment - Solicit feedback
Emotional Balance - Stay on the path
Emotional Balance - Do hard things
Dan Miller is the founder of Fifth Pillar Consulting and believes that developing our emotional intelligence is a good idea.