Do you like your job? Are you “happy enough”? Do you feel excited about the business you’re building? If you’ve been looking for ways to find more job satisfaction, EQ might just be what you’ve been looking for.
Emotional Intelligence is a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we percieve and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.
Emotional intelligence plays a huge part in our success at work and in our businesses. According to a study of 4,888 workers in various occupations, these five traits will help contribute to your overall success at work.
Self-Actualization
The ability to continually improve yourself and take part in meaningful activities. If you ever find yourself holding back from reaching for bigger goals or utilizing all your amazing skills for whatever reason, this may be an area of growth for you.
What activities do you love doing at work? A helpful exercise is to clarify your personal values, compare them against what you do in your work life, and determine if you’re pursuing meaningful work that aligns with your values.
Happiness
While not one of the EQ-i sub-scales, happiness helps us feel satisfied with our lives. Happiness is that lovely feeling of general contentment and the ability to enjoy others and be able to “let loose” every once in a while.
You probably heard the phrase, “Happiness is an inside job.” It’s true! Happiness is found in attainable goals. It’s getting lost in a “flow state,” which is often achieved by engaging in work that aligns with our interests and values. This personal and professional goal planner has worked wonders for me.
If you’ve been struggling to feel happy for an extended length of time and think there’s a deeper issue, help is out there. I encourage you to lean into your community to start a conversation.
Optimism
Are you a glass-is-half-full or glass-half-empty type of person? Optimism means being able to stay hopeful and resilient despite setbacks. Someone who can find the silver lining in any situation. Not to be mistaken for blind optimism or seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses, it’s the ability to read our surroundings accurately and easily bounce back from frustration or failure.
Feeling the need for a quick hit of optimism? My favourite (and daily) practice to ground me for the entire day is by expressing gratitude for three to five things/people/events in my life every morning before I get out of bed. Headspace is a great app that offers short, daily hits of optimism with The Wakeup.
If you’re into journaling, try noting down any negative thoughts that come into your head throughout the day. This helps break the negative thought spiral and puts them ‘on hold’ until you can take a look at your list at the end of the day. This practice helps to minimize the importance of the thought over time, and eventually, you’ll start to note the negative internal chatter and replace it with something more optimistic.
Self-Regard
Accepting yourself for who you are, warts and all is a sign that you have a higher self-regard. Simply pumping yourself up is not a sign of higher self-regard. If you find yourself struggling to accept ALL of you (warts and all) or if you are always talking about how great you are, but don’t possess the necessary life skills to acknowledge the areas where you can grow, then you might want to ask a close friend out for coffee.
Ask some people who are close to you what they think your strengths and weaknesses are. Ask them to share how they think you could improve in those areas. Having an objective look at yourself can be a major step toward building up your self-regard.
Assertiveness
Assertiveness shows up in the way that you express what you believe in, your feelings (all of them!) and your thoughts in a productive way.
The more arguments you win, the fewer friends you’ll have. ~ Anonymous but totally accurate proverb
If you think you struggle to speak up in meetings, share your important ideas and thoughts on stuff; if you find yourself quietly fuming inside about issues that matter to you… or if you find yourself bulldozing in conversations and don’t let others get a word in, then taking a closer look at this trait can go a long way with happiness at work.
Keep a log of situations that come up during a workweek and how you handled them, either passively, assertively or aggressively. What thoughts and feelings did you experience when you were acting in a particular way? How did other people react to you?
When we are happier at work, we perform better and find new ways to challenge ourselves and grow as an individual. How will you start to sharpen your skills and become the best version of yourself?
Sources
Steven J. Stein, PH.D and Howard E. Book, M.D. (2011 Multi-Health Systems Inc.). The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success (3rd ed.) John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.
