Emotional Intelligence

Every event/experience that has been in your life comes to teach a lesson, it all lies with you to develop a Positive mentality. Picture all the events in your life as three dimensional pictures, at first when this picture is presented to you (when an event occurs), you are only viewing one side of the picture now when faced with what you would consider to be an unpleasant event you need to try to switch your 3D picture and view it from a positive angle well it’s not as easy as turning a picture (literally) but it can be done.

We all need to know that in what we perceive to be our lowest moments depending on our attitude we can learn the greatest lesson which can be used as our key to succeeding in life, and to learn such a lesson we need to stop looking so much to the pain and through the pain hold the greatest lesson to get ahead in life, we need to be accountable we must stop playing the victims in life we need to take on the role of leadership and take charge/control of our lives.

I am sure there has been certain times in life where you have stopped to ask yourself which route to take moments when you find yourself at a cross roads, When you feel like giving in and throwing in the towel when such moments occur its one of those times that you need to tap into your inner dragon and unleash your full potential, One of the Skills needed in order to win in life is Emotional Intelligence  (EI)  although it’s not the only skill needed for success  it is an essential Ingredient to have, EI covers many of the Skills needed for one to turn things around when EI is developed it can Help to break bad habits and equip one with the necessary skills needed to achieve success .

So what is Emotional Intelligence and how does one develop EI and how does it really help one to be successful?

Emotional Intelligence is defined as a set of skills in perceiving understanding, and managing emotions and feelings. Emotions possess a lot of power they control thoughts and influence every aspect of one’s life and Emotional Intelligence acts as the key to understanding ourselves it helps a lot in building healthy relationships with the people around us, With Emotional Intelligence it becomes easier to control our emotions, it is the key that enables us to evaluate our own emotions as well as other people’s emotions thus helping in determining the behaviour in other people meaning you will then be able to interpret and respond appropriately to others emotions. The journey to fulfilling your goals/ success is filled with many emotions and success can never be achieved without interaction with others thus this skill is essential to develop.

Once EI is developed you can be able to Guide your thoughts and Actions which means you are then able to develop your Emotional strength, what is Emotional strength?

Emotional  strength is defined as emotional stability and resiliency in the face of extreme stress meaning you are definitely going to face stress it doesn’t mean you will not be stressed, Emotional strength  simply refers to your ability to keep calm when faced  with adversity, Emotional strength allows you to have a positive attitude during challenges or difficulties to build emotional strength you must learn to control your thoughts and emotions which is obviously not an easy task to do but with enough dedication you can be able to monitor and control your thoughts, in any situation you are faced with however hard/Emotional  it may be you must take control of your emotions be a master of your emotions(we need to be aware of the relationship that thoughts have with emotions, our thoughts cause our Emotions as well as our behaviour and physical feelings thus the importance to controlling your thoughts) what is important to know is the fact that we are mostly affected by what we think  it is our own perception if we can change our views on situations then we can be able to gain control and lead a positive life, It is important however to note that when we talk about positive thinking it would be denial to actually believe that we can avoid negative thoughts altogether, negative thoughts will always be there but if we develop positive thinking it can help us not to give up when negative thoughts try to take over .Positive thinking is all about defense it is used to build up your hope and to fight off negative thoughts.

Back to Emotional intelligence, EI is very helpful in the pursuit of your dreams the reason why it is so helpful is because it creates self-awareness and management which are the required traits if success is to be achieved hence the strong relationship between emotional intelligence and success. Now Coming to Emotional self-awareness, what is self-awareness?

Emotional Awareness is the ability to listen to your emotions and to come to an understanding of how those emotions make you feel, how it affects your thoughts and actions as well as how these affect you and everyone else around you. Meaning with self-awareness you are able to evaluate your emotions and relate them to your behavior thus making it easy to manage your emotions thoughts and actions, emotional awareness aids you in developing an optimistic mentality which enables you to focus on solutions rather than difficulties. Emotional awareness is a skill that will take time to develop but once developed it becomes a natural ability say you are under stress with emotional awareness you are able to recognize the feeling  immediately and also identify what it is that is causing your stress thereby you are able to remain calm and act cautiously. During emotional challenging times it helps to use positive self-talk, you are your own life-coach The best person to help you keep calm is you this is because nobody knows you better than you know yourself even with Emotional Intelligence no one can ever know you better. The topic of self-awareness brings to light the issue of bad habits, what are bad habits?

Bad habits are described as harmful qualities(An example of a bad habits that many can relate to is procrastination) that one has developed overtime, this type of qualities are adopted without realization but end up as a normal or natural way to behave, Bad habits affect us in negative ways and are harmful to our growth They are what prevents us from achieving our goals Bad habits are hard to change/eliminate this is because many people are accustomed  to them as normal it is however easy to replace them , easy in a sense that it is not as hard as trying to eliminate them altogether.

Now looking at the definition of emotional-awareness it can be said that through awareness bad habits can be pointed out and once we are of knowledge we can be able to develop good replacement habits. It is however important to note that replacing bad habits won’t come easy it is going to be difficult and it will require a lot of dedication and patience The activity of replacing bad habits will rely on your ability to control thoughts for example whenever we start to procrastinate we need to coach ourselves i.e.  We need to channel our thoughts into a can-do spirit meaning we must control our thoughts which then brings me to the law of attraction, what is the law of attraction?

The law of attraction is the idea that everything that is coming into your life you are actually attracting, I know it is an idea that many will find to be ridiculous but it is proven to be true you see worry actually attracts the bad that is happening in your life this is because worry focuses on the bad that is happening in your life it doesn’t focus on what you want hence you must avoid worry at all times ,to actually say avoid is unrealistic let me rephrase that by saying whenever worry is present try to change your mentality  and  instead focus  on what you want the minute you think of what you don’t want you are actually attracting it in your life so at all times focus your mind on what you want , it is very simple if your thoughts are negative you attract negative things if your thoughts are positive you attract positive things the universe responds to the energy we send out to the world  this means that the power to get what we want lies within our reach we have the power to determine our future,  through our minds we can change our destiny all we need to do is Imagine, Believe, Act, and Achieve but it starts with us gaining control/ managing  our thoughts .

Overtime I have learnt of ways to help me cope with negative energy, although many can find this method to be helpful for others it may not hit the spot this is because as humans we are different and everyone needs to find what works for them. I am a writer It’s what I have always wanted to do I always feel so complete and happy when I am writing and unknowingly sometimes when I was upset or when I was feeling uneasy I would feel comfort in writing, what I would do is I would always turn to my notepad, at first I would go through the emotional roller coaster and then when once I was calm I would write my feelings down and as the years went by and I became more aware of things I started using my writing as a way to help me cope when I felt like breaking down sure there are many times that I can think of when I was too frustrated and I couldn’t bring myself to hold a pen  but presently  my emotional strength has developed and I am able to talk myself into doing something even if I feel like not  doing it this is because I have knowledge and I know it works for me I mostly start off writing about how bad a situation is until eventually I find myself writing positive things, somehow in me writing out my frustrations I end up thinking of positive thing to write  but it’s not every time that I have  the luxury of sitting down with a pen in my hand or being able to type on my Personal computer or mobile phone  so for times when I can’t  write I use self-talk I still use the same strategy as when I write which is asking myself a round of questions, what am I feeling ? I think of all the emotions that I am going through and I analyze what could have brought this feeling and emotions I also try to manage my reaction so that I can be able to keep calm  The difference between then and now  is that now  I am more aware of my emotions and I am able to monitor my thoughts , earlier this year I had to drive to Johannesburg  I was taking my brother there to his new residence as he was starting varsity and since it was his first time in Johannesburg he had no idea where the place was all we knew was the street name and we were using the GPS from my phone, this was my first trip driving to Johannesburg and we spent hours and hours getting lost  the GPS didn’t help us that much and  after many hours of driving in the same area I was irritated and to make matters worse we were late as the residence offices close by 17h00  we had 30 minutes left before closure and I was frustrated  I lost complete concentration I had no hope  I failed to remain calm and  suddenly  I heard a loud sound which was the sound coming from my busted tire because I was not concentrating I drove straight to a sharp pavement corner  which caused the tire to burst , by not remaining calm I had only caused more problems and added to the delay now just a few days ago I volunteered to take my cousin back to his place after a weekend visit  and I have never been on the drivers sit when driving to his area and I am very bad at memorizing directions  and as you can guess I got lost on my way back I missed an off-ramp and there was no way I could go back my best bet was to continue until I find a route that would take me where I needed to go for the first few hours I remained calm  but as I drove on seeing the boards I knew I was far away from where I needed to go and it was very late for me to be driving alone at night with all the hijacking and killings well this were the thoughts that were building up in my mind  I have to say for a few minutes in that car I fought a battle in my head  I tried so hard to win the war within my thoughts  and nothing beats positive self-talk as I managed to remain calm and positive  I had to make a decision and I made the right one if I didn’t remain calm the worst could have happened but because I was positive the world reacted to my energy the minute I decided to off-ramp which I did based only on impulse I saw a board  directing me to the route that would take me straight home  and I was safe.

 Look Change doesn’t come easy but through change dreams can become a reality for change to take place we need to develop a new way of thinking we need not fear change because change doesn’t come to take away what is good but it comes to pave the way to getting what we desire.For success to come about chances are you will experience failure and today I want to say to you,  do not fear or avoid failure embrace it learn from it and grow from it, failure is there to teach an important lesson it is the stepping stone to success there is no way around it you have to go through it, Would we be proud of success,  would success be so fulfilling if we knew where to go, if the was a detailed map written with each corner and turn that we needed to take? Most certainly It would not be worth so much to us if it was that easy, it is the unknown that makes life fun a few wrong turns here and there leads one closer to their true purpose but a few wrong turns do no good if we refuse to learn, if we refuse to change our approach in life, then we can never get up from the ground life will continue throwing punches at us and we wouldn’t even know how to defend ourselves, we would continue playing victims.

We need to not dwell so much on the pain, believe me for every unpleasant situation I’m sure there is also some good that has been in your life, it is probably painful because it means so much to you. Use the pain/failure (which is experience) to fuel your growth there is no secret take punches and blows as they come and refuse to be knocked down by life if you’re knocked down refuse to tap out and to be counted out get up and take the pain and be tactical and rise to your greatness. Successful people are not those who have never failed in life but it is people who didn’t give up after failure it is people who continued after failure, success begins at the end of failure.