EQ 2.0 - Self-Awareness Strategies

Don't Be Fooled by a Good Mood, Either

A good mood can deceive your thinking just as much as a bad one. When you are feeling excited and really happy, it's easy to dos something that you'll regret. Strategy: Stay aware of your good moods and the foolish decisions these moods can lead to, and you'll be able to enjoy feeling good without any regrets.

Visit Your Values

As you run around struggling to check your daily "to dos" off your list, it's easy to lose sight of what's really important to you - your core values and beliefs. Strategy: Take a sheet of paper and separate it into two columns. List your core values and beliefs in the left column and anything that you've done or said recently that you aren't proud of in the right column. Check for alignment between the two columns.

Feel Your Emotions Physically

Because your mind and body are so tightly connected, one of the most effective ways to understand your emotions as they are happening is to learn how to spot the physical changes that accompany your emotions. Strategy: To better understand the physical effects of your emotions, try closing your eyes the next time you have a few moments alone and assess the pace of your heartbeat, your breathing, how tense your muscles are. Then, think through a strong positive or negative event and take note of how those things change.

Keep a Journal about Your Emotions

The biggest challenge to developing self-awareness is objectivity. With a journal, you can record what events triggered strong emotions in you and how you responded to them. Strategy: You should write about time spent at work and home - nothing is off limits. Capture who is there, what the situation was, and your specific emotions (even the physical sensations you notice).

Quit Treating Your Feelings as Good or Bad

The downfall of attaching labels such as "good" or "bad" to your emotions is that judging them keeps you from really understanding what it is that you are feeling. Strategy: The next time you feel an emotion begin to build, take notice and refrain from putting it into the "good" or "bad" pile. Remind yourself that the feeling is there to help you understand something important.

Get to Know Yourself under Stress

The mountain of stressors in your life is constantly growing. Every time your stress tolerance rises to new heights, you - or those around you - push and push until you take on more. All of the high-tech gadgets at your disposal aren't helping, either. Strategy: Heed the physiological and emotional signs of stress as you recognize them. Take the time to recognize these signals and recharge your emotional battery before your stress causes permanent damage to your system.

Seek Feedback

The only way to get a second, more elusive perspective is to open yourself up to feedback from others, which can include friends, coworkers, mentors, supervisors, and family. Strategy: Ask for their feedback and be sure to get specific examples and situation, and as you gather the answers, look for similarities in the information.

Watch Yourself Like a Hawk . . .

Think of all the things you would be able to see and understand if you had the perspective of a hawk, flying high above. Even though you are not a hawk, you can still develop a more objective understanding of your own behavior. Strategy: You can practice by taking notice of your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors right as the situation unfolds.

Lean into Your Discomfort

This refers to the tendency to avoid the discomfort that comes from seeing yourself as you really are. After the first few times you lean into your discomfort, you will quickly find that the discomfort isn't so bad, it doesn't ruin you, and it reaps rewards. Strategy: Rather than avoiding a feeling, your goal should be to move toward the emotion, into it, and eventually through it.

Know Who and What Pushes Your Buttons

We all have buttons (pet peeves, triggers, etc.). Knowing who pushes your buttons and how they do it is critical to developing the ability to take control of these situations, maintain your poise, and calm yourself down. Knowing your buttons is essential to using the self- and relationship management strategies that come later. Strategy: Pinpoint the specific people and situations that trigger your emotions.

Spot Your Emotions in Books, Movies, and Music

When the lyrics of a song resonate with you, they say a lot about how you feel, and when a character from a movie or book sticks in your head, it's probably because important aspects of his or her thoughts and feelings parallel your own. Strategy: Take a closer look the next time one of these mediums of art resonates with you and grabs your attention - you never know what you'll find.

Don't Be Fooled by a Bad Mood

When you are in a bad mood, it puts a dark cloud over every thought, feeling, and experience you have. This causes you to lose sight of what's good in your life, and suddenly causes you to get upset with different aspects of your life. Strategy: Remain aware of the mood and reflect upon recent events that may have brought it on (but don't dwell on them).

Check Yourself

Without question, how you feel is reflected in how you look. Your facial expressions, posture, demeanor, clothes, and even your hair all say important things about your mood. Physical appearance and demeanor are two components of this. Strategy: Take a moment here and there to check yourself and ask if the look that you are projecting to the world one that you have chosen, one that your mood created, or on that you tend to lean on by default?

Observe the Ripple Effect from Your Emotions

Your outpourings of emotion are like stones that send ripples through the people in your life. Since emotions are the primary drivers of behavior, it's important you understand the effect they have on other people. Strategy: To fully understand the ripple effects of your emotions, you'll need to spend some time reflecting upon your behavior. You'll also need to ask others how they are affected by your emotions.

Stop and Ask Yourself Why You Do the Things You Do

Your self-awareness will grow abundantly when you begin seeking out the source of your feelings. Emotions serve an important purpose - they clue you into things that you'll never understand if you don't take the time to ask yourself why. Strategy: Get in the habit of stopping to ask yourself why surprising emotions rumbled to the surface and what motivated you to do something out of character.