EQ: 12 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF-RECOGNITION

Last week’s blog focused on the importance of EQ in business and the workplace. The foundation of EQ starts with self-recognition. It makes sense that the more awareness, understanding and acceptance you have of your personal psychology, the easier it will be to manage yourself and others.

Remember, your EQ can grow and improve over time by focusing on certain actions and thoughts. But before we get into how to improve your self-recognition, let’s look at what it is.

The 5 sub-categories of self-recognition

1. Self-Awareness/Understanding

People with high EQ make a conscious and deliberate effort to reflect on their personal identity, image, feelings, motives and desires. It’s about understanding what makes you tick or get ticked off and importantly, knowing why these emotions occur.

2. Connections of Cause and Effect

You need to recognise the impact and consequence of behaviour on feelings and moods. Your emotions are affected by both external and internal factors. It is important to identify how different emotions affect your performance. For example, if you feel unappreciated, does that drive you to work harder, or do you give up and care less?

3. Self-Appreciation, Acceptance and Confidence

High EQ is synonymous with the development of self-esteem, personal worth and value. Therefore, you need to get to grips with your personal attributes and recognise your strengths, weaknesses and limitations. It’s about balancing self-assurance and being realistic.

4. Consciousness, Assertiveness

People with high EQ intentionally establish personal boundaries and appropriate limits. Moreover, they have a presence and outward presentation that expresses self-worth

5. Emotional Identification

This is the ability to identify and name personal feelings and to reflect on them. So, people with high EQ and emotional identification have an excellent grasp of what they are feeling and why.

12 Ways to Improve Self-Awareness

• Firstly, take time to learn, define, and understand a minimum of 100 different emotions.
• Accept personal feelings as information without judgment or rejection.
• Recognise both positive and negative emotions. Reinforce the positive and lessen the negative.
• Determine personal strengths and weaknesses. Develop realistic self-acceptance and appreciation. Have positive self-assurance and strong confidence.
• Connect emotions and thoughts. Think about the causes and impacts of feelings.
• Find things to like about yourself to establish self-awareness and esteem.
• Take time to reflect and understand inner feelings.
• Practice positive self-talk; self-affirmation; constructive visualization as well as journaling
• Make conscious decisions to choose positive, constructive feelings. Similarly, have dreams and plans for self-actualisation.
• Establish the practice of relaxing, refreshing and renewing through meditation and reflection.
• Think before acting. Consider consequences and then do things purposefully.
• Finally, get outside feedback and support. Let others offer information on the feelings they see displayed.

High Self-Recognition and Awareness is the core of emotional intelligence. Once you have a greater understanding of yourself, you’ll be able to manage yourself more effectively. In addition, recognising your own emotions and feelings means you’ll be able to recognise emotions and feelings in others. And once that’s in place, you’ll have the emotional intelligence necessary to effectively manage others.

Look out for our next blog which will focus on Self-Management.

If improving EQ is a priority in your business, contact me to discuss our fun and interactive EQ workshop.