#Self-awareness #Emotional Intelligence
There are triggers all around each day. New day could be new triggers or same triggers or old triggers. We should learn to navigate our triggers when we are elevating our emotional maturity.
This post is covering self-awareness which is the cornerstone to personal growth. You will not find most top performers lacking in self-awareness.
The skill builder covered in this post will help you elevate under that category.
Observe you emotions when triggers arise.
Over the next few days observe yourself as a third party would. Imagine yourself sitting across the room watching your before the action or interactions.
Let me be more specific. I do not like tardiness. The person I am waiting on is traditionally late. We are riding together, so I do not want to be late and I care about our relationship. Once I am completely ready for the outing, I observe the time. I have a cushion before I feel it is the appropriate time to leave and the time we discussed. I have made a commitment in my personal life that tardiness of others will not control my emotions.
I have anxiety and irritation building every moment on the clock. Observe my emotions in the calm before the storm. In that calm I have complete freedom to choose my reactions. So what I am saying is I have the ability to observe myself and not get emotional hijacked by the situation.
In my observation period I notice that I am building myself up for an explosion. See what the situation looks like from the outside and don't fan the flames by brooding and dwelling on what an injustice this is to you, your friendship, respect of your time and more.
Realize that as soon as you hear one excuse from normally tardy party, your emotions have a tendency to boil over and you will break the commitment you made to yourself.
1. You can choose to see if from a different perspective.
2. You can choose to value the relationship on a whole, not just what is wrong with it at the moment.
3. Evaluate the situation from an outside perspective to separate from your current emotions.
This emotional intelligence skill needs to build muscle, so do not treat like a to-do item on a check list. Exercise this muscle by applying this observation of your self skill over and over. You will build this muscle and many things that use to hijack you emotional will fade and you will be ready for your next skill builder.
Note: if you do not use this muscle, it will atrophy.
