Emotional Intelligence: What is it & How to Improve Yours?

Where were you and what were you doing on July 27th, 2015? If nothing significant for you happened on this date, chances are you don’t remember absolutely anything about that day. Do you?

Where were you and what were you doing on September 11th, 2001? (9/11)

If you were over 14 years of age at that time, chances are you remember almost everything about that day. What you did, how you felt and even what you had for breakfast.

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Your emotions are that part of you that help you to navigate the world:

  • You remember the past based on the feeling you had connected to the events or the people involved in it.
  • You are making choices based on your emotions.
  • You are building up your intuition based on your emotions and feeling generated by past experiences.
  • Even to spell right you are using your emotions.

As you can see your emotions and feelings are important; sometimes, most times even more significant than your logic and reasoning.

For all these reasons and many others, developing and shaping your emotional intelligence is imperative in building your interpersonal skills.

Almost everything you want to accomplish in your personal development starts with your emotional intelligence.

Related: 23 Best Books on Emotional Intelligence

What will do for you developing your emotional intelligence regarding interpersonal skills

Emotional intelligence starts with

Self-awareness: knowing who you are, your character, your feelings, motives, and desires.

Self-awareness is the building block of who you are and who you want to be.

Emotional intelligence continues with:

  • Self-assessment.

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Self-assessment is the evaluation you are making about yourself, your actions, attitudes, performance, and abilities.

  • Self-discipline.

Self-discipline is a skill. It’s a skill that helps you stay focused, helps you to achieve you goals and aspirations, keeps you motivated and gives you the trust in your decisions.you goals and aspirations, keeps you motivated and gives you the trust in your decisions.

  • Resilience.

Resilience is your ability to adapt appropriately to new circumstances, to face adversity, trauma, tragedy and other significant events in your life.

Resilience means to shape your behaviors, thoughts, and actions to the stressful situations you are faced with and then to move forward in a positive way.

  • Understanding your emotions and the emotions of others.

Understanding your emotions.

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First, you need to know that every emotion you have is there to signal you, to make pay attention to or to teach you something.

Your emotions are not random; they have a well-defined purpose.

The purpose can be, for example, to:

  • motivate you to take action
  • motivate future actions and behaviors
  • help you to thrive, to survive and to avoid pain or danger
  • allow other people to understand you and what you want
  • enable you to understand others and what they want
  • help you to take decisions
  • help you to adapt to new circumstances
  • prepare your body for immediate action
  • imprint events on your memory
  • assist you to assess the situation or people quickly with minimum conscious awareness
  • give you cultural competence and attunement to social norms.

Second, even though your emotions serve a well-defined purpose, understanding your emotions will allow you to:

  1. Navigate the world without becoming the slave of your emotions or to be overcome by them
  2. Manage your emotions by controlling disruptive emotions, controlling impulses and discipline yourself.

Understanding other people’s emotions.

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The purpose to understand other people’s emotions can be, for example to:

  • Maintain and promote positive and sustainable relationships.
  • Read people – even though reading people is not an exact science and it’s subjective, reading people gives you a starting point to better understand others and followed by clarifying questions helps you to take the appropriate action.
  • Empathy – gives you an insight of how people may feel because empathy allows you to see things from their perspective as well not just from yours.

Empathy is a fundamental emotion for interpersonal skills and communication competence. Enables you to make predictions about others which, in return, it’s a valuable tool to influence and to gain compliance from others because it’s creating supportive and caring feelings on your part.

  • Establish and built a positive image for yourself in the eyes of others – When it comes to interpersonal relationships what counts the most is the perception people have about you.

How to use emotions to upscale your interpersonal skills.

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Be a charismatic person

Why:

  • People want to be more around you
  • Gives you a plus of authority and credibility
  • People are more willing to see the good part of you and forgive and forget faster the not so good part of you.
  • It makes your communication more efficient and comfortable.

How to be Charismatic:

  • Show your imperfections and vulnerabilities,
  • Talk nicely and positive about other people,
  • Look people in the eye when you speak,
  • Show your hands when you talk and talk with your hands as well,
  • Give people the chance to speak… a lot.

Trust your gut decisions.

Making decisions is the domain of your emotions.

Your gut feeling is an emotion and being an emotion is not random! It comes from your past experiences, your personal history, your beliefs, and values.

Has it happened to you to have to make a decision and your gut feeling told you one thing and your rationality told you another thing? And if you have chosen to take the rational decision to discover quite fast that your gut feeling was, actually the right one?

The funny thing is that when you are not going with your gut feeling, it is more likely to be an emotion (as fear, for example) that stops you from doing it, rather than a logical reason.

Look beyond the obvious.

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Peter drinks a big glass of vodka with a big glass of water.
The next day he feels sick and dizzy and then he drinks a big glass of whiskey with a big glass of water.
The next day he feels sick and dizzy and then he drinks a big glass of brandy with a big glass of water.
The next day he feels sick and dizzy and then he concludes that he shouldn’t drink any more water because it makes him sick and dizzy.

The obvious is not always the truth and when it comes to people, the obvious for you and what you read in other people’s behaviors, gestures and body language can be far way from what they, actually intended.

Later in this article, you will discover how to use questions in a clever way to ensure you are not misreading people.

Create a positive image of yourself in the eyes of people around you.

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First, make people around you feel important and good about themselves.
They will look forward to collaborating with you, to be lead by you, to be around you at every opportunity.

Second, talk nicely with and about other people.
What you are saying about others is reflecting more the person you are and less who are the people you’re talking about.

Third, allow yourself to be vulnerable sometimes and show your imperfections. It makes you human. You become like the person in front of you.

For example, to say “I don’t know” sometimes, it is a powerful way to gain people’s trust and understanding especially in those situations when you are the person who “knows it all.”

Fourth, remember yourself that you are on a mission whenever you interact with people. Your mission is to guard and improve your personal image.

Keep your emotions in control. Learn to experience your emotions in a positive way.

Every emotion has a purpose, so experience your emotions, find out the purpose and act and behave in a way the makes you proud and doesn’t take your energy away and doesn’t transform you in the village idiot.

Fifth, respect yourself.

  • You want people to like you? You have to like yourself first.
  • You want people to appreciate your accomplishments and positive traits? Be the first one to do it.
  • Do you want compassion, understanding, and love from other people? Be the fist that is offering all this to you.

In a nutshell, you need to be the first person that is offering you what you want.

Creating yourself a positive image in the eyes of others doesn’t mean to be fake or dishonest.

It means to bring out the best in you, to put forward your positive side and traits, your talents and your skills.

It means to treat yourself as you would like to be treated by others. You are giving an example of how you expect to be treated by the way you’re treating yourself.

Remember: you first!

Body language and posture.

You posture, and body language is not only influencing what other people might think of you and your intentions but also have a great impact on your mental state and the kind of thoughts your mind is producing.is not only influencing what other people might think of you and your intentions but also have a great impact on your mental state and the kind of thoughts your mind is producing.

You can change your emotions and the way you feel by simply changing your body posture.

When you stand up tall, and you look up, for example, it is almost impossible to have negative thoughts.

Or, another example, when you are smiling, and you have an open body posture, it is almost impossible for the people around to have negative thoughts towards you.

Build trust with people

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Some people are trusting by nature, and you’re winning them with a minimum effort. However, the majority of people want to make sure you are a good person before they are giving you their trust.

I will give you now

The blueprint to become a trusted person.

(Not to say that you can’t be trusted already, yet, some people need a bit more persuasion to give you their trust.)

How to build trust

#1. Say it as it is. Be honest.

We are all “professional” liars. Yet, there is a big difference between, what we call a white lie and a bad lie.
“Does this dress look good on me?” “Yes, darling!”
“Do you like the carnations I brought you?” “Yes, darling and I liked the yellow tulips for my birthday!”

These are a few examples of white lies. The purpose of a white lie is mainly to protect in some way the person you’re speaking to. However, if you want the trust of people you interact with, keep even your white lies to a minimum.

Take the responsibility for your action and this will help you to change and improve.

#2. Allow yourself to be vulnerable sometimes, to show your imperfections.

There is no such thing as perfect people. We all have some imperfections, some things that we don’t know how to do, some things that we don’t know how to deal with.

When you show people that you’re not perfect either, that you are like the rest of us, people know better what to expect from you. People appreciate the fact that you a willing to expose your weaker points. This means there is a place for them around you to be filled up by their straights.

#3. Start every interaction you have with a desire to get a win-win type of outcome.

You can’t trust somebody that always wants to be on top and wants to win no matter what. Can you? For you to be a winner, in life, there is no need for the other person to lose. Follow your interest and allow the other person to follow his interest at the same time.

#4. Give determined answers.

Give definitive answers when it is possible. If you go vague and evasive, people are left wondering what your real intentions are, and this creates confusion and distrust. You seem unwilling to take responsibility for your actions, wants, needs and desires.

#5. Eye contact.

It’s been said that your eyes are the window to your soul.
Among other things, people will judge the level at which they can trust you by the movements of your eyes.

There is a good reason for it because the movements of your eyes are speaking volumes about the kind of thoughts you’re having. Our unconscious mind picks up these movements and gives them meaning. Even if we don’t have any training to do it consciously, our unconscious mind knows!

Almost every thought you have generates a particular eye movement.

You are doing it all the time and because it is very hard to train your eye movements and you seem insincere if you succeed to do it, the easiest way to use other people’s emotions to upgrade your interpersonal skills is to control the things you’re thinking about.

The more positive thoughts you’re having, the more trusted you are.

So, don’t try to control your eye movements concisely, train your mind to think positive.

If you don’t know how you tend to think and how your eyes are reflecting that to the people you’re interacting with, you can make a video recording of yourself. You could be surprised how many things you can notice that you never thought of before.

#6. Humor.

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People are drawn to relaxed and confident individuals.

Use humor to put yourself in a relaxed and confident state.

Make jokes about situations and not about people! You can share an embarrassing moment, for example, but the emphasis to be on that moment not on how have failed.

#7. Validate people’s feeling, opinions, and views.

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You want people to trust you? Validating people’s feeling, opinions, and views show that you trust them too.

“I feel tired and left out.” “You shouldn’t feel like that.”

“I can’t go to the park because a have a headache.” “Don’t worry, until you get there, it will pass.”

“This printer is broken.” “Oh, it’s not broken, you just don’t know how to use it” “It’s not broken, this is how it works.”

“I think people in the government took an awful decision about the welfare.” “No, they took an excellent decision. You just don’t understand how these things are working.”

All examples above are examples of how NOT to respond to people’s feelings and views. Instead, use this kind of responses:

“I feel tired and left out.” “What makes you feel this way?” or “I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention to make you feel this way.” Or “Yes, sometimes this kind of situations are making us feel left out and tired.”

“I can’t go to the park because a have a headache.” “Do you think it’s possible to come and maybe you will feel better until we get there?”

“This printer is broken.” “Can you show me what is not working?” or “Let’s see why it is not working,” or “Thank you for letting me know. I will check it out.”

“I think people in the government took an awful decision about the welfare.” “How so?” or “How would you have done differently?” or “They don’t get it right all the time.”

Validating people’s feeling and views is not the same with agreeing with them.

The point is to validate people’s feeling and view in a way that clearly shows that:

  • you heard them,
  • you took them into account,
  • they are entitled to their feelings and view,
  • you accept the fact that not all of us have the same opinion and that different opinions, on the same issue, doesn’t mean someone is wrong.

Instead of presenting your opinion right the way, ask questions:

“What makes you feel this way? How come you feel this way? How could it be done better? How did you come to this conclusion?”

When you’re validating people’s feeling and view, don’t use terms such as: but and why. Use words such as: “and” and “how” (how come? how so?).how so?).

The word but is canceling the first part of what you’re saying.

“This machine is broken.” “Maybe you’re right, but I’m telling you, it works just fine.”

“I’ve done good today, but tomorrow I expect better.”good today, but tomorrow I expect better.”

“I understand you feel this way, but this wasn’t my intention.”

The word why is asking for justification and people feel attacked when we ask for justifications.

“Why do you feel this way?” “Why do you think this is so?” “Why are you late?” “Why aren’t you ready yet?”

Simply change terms such as “but” and “why” with words such as “how” and “and.”

“I see you’re point of view, and I want to add [you’re point of view, and I want to add [your opinion].”

“I’ve done good today, and I expect even better tomorrow.”good today, and I expect even better tomorrow.”

“I understand you feel this way, and I want you to know that this wasn’t my intention.”

“How come you feel this way?” “What makes you feel this way? “What made you think this way?” “How come are you late?” “How come you’re not ready yet?”

#8. Accept people as they are.

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Accepting people as they are, builds trust because people feel relaxed around you.

They feel that you really understand them, that you appreciate them with good and bad, that you are willing to make concessions for them.

In return people trust you more and have the willingness to reciprocate the things you are offering them.

Plus, because they feel free to be who they are around you, they will try more and more to please you. They want to prove you right: that they are good as they are and, therefore, they will strive to do things better and better each time.

Accepting people as they are, gives them the opportunity and the freedom to bring out the best in them. Who is winning? Both of you!

Why you shouldn’t try to change people

We are making an image of how people around us should be like. Then we expect people to fit that image. We want people to change and become that person we want them to be.

Embark on a discovery journey about how to make your image and expectations to fit the people around you and not the other way around.

For almost everyone change is hard. Change implies the fact that we are not good enough as we are and most times we like who we are!

Liking who you are is not a matter of arrogance or vanity, liking who you are is a necessity.

This is the challenge you are facing when it come to change: how do you acknowledge you need to change some things about yourself and at the same time to honestly like yourself? It seems a bit of a contradiction. Doesn’t it?

Imagine then how hard must be for other people to change at your request.

Surround yourself with people that you like as they are; People that you are able to accept with good and bad. None of us is perfect, and that’s okay. We complete each other in such amazing ways.

#9. Show sincere interest and care for the other person:

  • Offer genuine compliments.
  • Call people just to ask them how are they doing.
  • Encourage great ideas and plans.
  • Remember special occasions and events in people’s lives.
  • Offer amazing experiences and memories.
  • Tell people what you like about them.
  • Show compassion, patience, love, respect and understanding.
  • Be present.
  • Include them in your future plans.
  • Spend time, energy and love with them and for them.
  • Tell them that you care.
  • Listen what they have to say even if you don’t agree.

#10. Don’t show off.

People who have the tendency to show off are not liked, nor wanted around, nor trusted.

A few reasons why people show off:

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  • They don’t feel noticed.
  • They feel that their accomplishments are not recognized enough or acknowledged as they should.
  • They feel that they don’t get the attention they deserve.
  • They care too much about what others think of them. They value the opinion of others more than their own opinion.
  • They believe that they are underestimated and undervalued.

Why don’t we trust people that like to show off?

Because when people are showing off, we start asking ourselves questions about their:

  • intentions,
  • honesty,
  • character,
  • emotional state,
  • confidence and self-esteem,
    and once we have this kind of questions in mind, we see them weak, they become a liability for us and not an asset to rely on.

For all these reasons, plus some, showing off makes people feel uncomfortable and reserved to offer their trust.

#11. Ask for advice.

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Apart from making people feel important, asking for advice is a great way of putting people to walk in your shoes.
It is a non-threatening way of asking people to see things from your perspective as well not just from theirs.

#12. Paraphrase what has been said to you.

We like to make assumptions about people; we like to believe that we can read people’s mind and we like to show off how smart we are when we are getting it right. However, most times we are not getting it right because each person is unique, each person has a different life history and different experiences.

Therefore, assume what you want, read people’s mind and intentions if you like. But always check with them:

  • if you are right,
  • if you understood correctly,
  • if their intentions are what you believe to be.

Check by asking questions and not by making statements about how they feel, or think, or believe.

Use your own words to repeat what you understood and the meaning you gave to what has been said or done.

“You believe that […], am I right? Have I understood correctly? Is [this] what you mean?”

#13. Use linguistic softeners.

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Avoid using absolutes: all, everybody, every time, always, never and so on.
These words are generalizations that could make you appear pretentious, judgemental and narrow-minded.

Use instead words such as maybe, it is possible, probably, most, some, sometimes, often and so on.

#14. Find a common enemy or cause.

When you have a common cause with somebody, that cause is building trust and closeness to be able to deal with the issue together.

#15. Find emotional balance.

It is hard to trust somebody that seems to go overboard emotionally or lose their temper easily. You can trust that they will be an emotional wreck, and that’s almost all you can trust about them, is it not?
They are too unpredictable to be trusted.

#16. Remove distractions.

Offer your full attention (during your interaction) to the person you want to trust you.

#17. Build your self-esteem and self-confidence.

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Self-esteem and self-confidence are important in building trust and upscaling your interpersonal skills because, without them, people don’t believe that you will be able to:

  • keep your commitments,
  • follow through with what you set to do,
  • have the courage to take the initiative if need it,
  • speak your mind,
  • challenge yourself,
  • ask for what you want,
  • face difficult situations,
    and many other things that are coming out of low self-esteem and low self-confidence.

People with low self-esteem and low self-confidence are good people; it is not a question of character or good nature or good faith. It is only a question of being able to balance your emotions, to keep your cool and to stand up for yourself.

#18. Prove your commitment.

People want proof that you are keeping your commitments; first to yourself and then to others.
People want proof that they can rely on you.

#19. Offer empathy.

People want to feel understood. Offering your empathy is the simplest way to let people know that you see them and that you understand them and their point of view, situation or difficulty.

#20. Be accessible, offer your time.

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Being available to people builds trust because they know you can be held accountable. You are not running away from your responsibilities and commitments.

Note:
Be accessible and offer your time with limits. If you are available all the time, at any hour, you can quickly become a doormat. People can take advantage of you.

When people know that they can take hold of you at any time, it can make them contact you either at inappropriate hours, either at the last minute and then they will expect from you to go above and beyond to solve their problems with no consideration for you.

Therefore, you need to set the boundaries from the start.

Tell people when exactly you will be available to them, how to contact you and how much time you need to respond.

Setting the rules from the start will not only ensure that people are not stepping on you but also, you are increasing your value and importance.

As long as you set the rules from the start, you have the proper balance between making yourself available, making yourself valuable, making yourself important and allowing people to hold you accountable.

#21. Keep your word and deliver what you promise.

What you say you will do, do it!

But before you get there (making promises), don’t agree to do things that are not doable for you or that cost you too much time or energy.

Don’t agree to do things that are not in your job description out of vanity or out of the fear to say no, for example.

Promising things out of wrong reasons will put you in many situations where you will not be able to keep your word no matter how much you try. Not to mention the fact that you could feel overwhelmed at some point because if you agree to one thing that is not your responsibility out of vanity or fear, chances are you tend to make such promises most of the time.

Put on your plate as much or as little as you can chew, and what you put on your plate Eat!

#22. Be consistent.

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Being consistent makes you reliable. People know what they can expect from you and what you are expecting from them.

#23. Volunteer insights, news, and information.

When you have new knowledge, news and information that you think are important for the people you are collaborating with, don’t wait until they are asking for it. Let them know as soon as you discover the new information.

#24. Give value and respect to the relationship.

Show people that you are in the relationship for the long-term.

A few ways to show you’re valuing, and you are respecting the relationship:

  • be willing to make compromises,
  • strive for a win/win type of outcome,
  • be tolerant,
  • make concessions,
  • take different opinions and views,
  • accept people as they are.

#25. Give proper feedback.

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Tell people the truth. There is nothing more difficult for people other than to have to solve imaginary problems, disasters that never happened and probably never will.

Leave your vanity and fear aside and tell people when they are great.

Leave your fear aside and tell people when they are not great and what you expect from them to do about it.

A proper feedback gives direction and sets the expectations.

People get relaxed collaborating with you because they don’t feel the need to second-guess their actions or performance.

#26. Ask questions.

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Be curious about people.
Show genuine interest in learning more about the people you are collaborating with.

Resist the temptation to:

  • talk about yourself,
  • jump to conclusions,
  • jump to rescue people from their situations and problems,
  • complete people’s sentences,
  • making assumptions and readings without checking with them if you are right or not

#27. Value, cherish and guard the trust and the privileges you are earning.

People are willing to give you their trust…once!

You know the saying: “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!” Right?

Most people live by it, and if you abuse their trust, most likely they will not offer it to you again or too soon or without countless proofs that you have changed.

We go now to the next tools for “How to use emotions to upscale your interpersonal skills.”

Motivate and inspire people.

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Most people lack motivation and drive because maintaining the motivation is an energy consuming process. Plus, motivation is a pleasant feeling, and sometimes we crave to feel motivated for the pleasure it brings and forget to achieve what we want. Motivation becomes a reward in itself.

Therefore, if you are the person that people got motivated and inspired by, you become almost indispensable in their lives.

There are two types of motivation:

  • The intellectual motivation – it comes out of your reasoning, you are rationalizing why you want something,
  • The visceral motivation – it comes from your emotions and desires.

The intellectual motivation

If you are losing your motivation to achieve something midway, you are not alone. Most of us do.

It is in our nature to shift our focus from one thing to another, and adding the fact that motivation takes some of your energy, losing your intellectual motivation is only a matter of time.
Maybe you are starting with a lot of enthusiasm which increases the level of your motivation; yet, once the novelty and the enthusiasm dissipates, the motivation level drops as well.

I guess there are a few people around you that seem to be highly motivated, doing something out of ordinary all the time, and you could think that this is how things should be for all of us.

However, these people are just a few, and they are standing out because they are the exception and not the rule. Yet, these are the people that you are noticing the most, that you probably see and admire the most.

We don’t give too much attention to those people that don’t inspire us; that appear to be bored, tired, unsuccessful or unmotivated, right?

Those people are lost in the background. We don’t notice them; we don’t pay attention to them, and we don’t see them. They are nobody!

Your intellectual motivation is the result of what you think you want or need. You have solid logical reasons for these wants and needs, but this type of motivation resides only in your mind and involves only your analytic and logic part of the brain.

The visceral motivation.

The visceral motivation comes out of your emotions.

You feel it somewhere else in your body as well not just in your mind.

You can feel it at the top of your chest, your gut or your stomach. It is so strong and powerful that something it hurts, physically if you don’t do what is necessary to get to your desired outcome.

The best side of the visceral motivation is the fact that you don’t lose it easily, you don’t get bored or tired of it.
Even after you accomplish what you want, it is still there in you pushing you to keep or maintain what you’ve achieved.

Blend these two types of motivation for maximum chances to achieve what you want.

Why?

In one hand, you intellectual motivation consumes a lot of your energy and focus, therefore, is hard to maintain. On the other hand, your visceral motivation can get so powerful and strong that you become obsessed with your goal and neglect yourself, your needs and the people around you.

Help people around you to find their intellectual motivation and their visceral motivation. Help them to combine the two types of motivation and become an inspiration and a positive tool in their lives.

How to help people to find motivation:

  • Use stories about other people that have achieved what they want and how their lives are improved by that achievement.
  • Ask them to imagine themselves achieving the goal; how they feel, how they see themselves, what are they telling themselves, how are perceived and received in their group for this accomplishment.
  • Ask them questions about the goal. Why they want it? How will improve their life? Who else will benefit? What else will facilitate for them achieving the goal (secondary gains)? Who are the people that will envy or admire them for it?

Be willing to take criticism from others.

Criticism is part of your life, and you can’t escape from it.

It has the power to put you down like almost nothing else, therefore, learn to take criticism without:

  • feeling guilty,
  • making it personal,
  • keeping grudges,
  • getting angry,
  • reacting inappropriately to it.

Receive criticism as a feedback (even in those situations when people criticize you only for making you feel bad.);

Receive it with curiosity:

  • “I wonder, can I do it better next time?”
  • “What was missing to have been better?”
  • “What actions or behaviors I need to change for a better outcome?”;

Receive it with a “thank you,

  • next time I will try to do it better.”
  • I will pay more attention to the details that you have mentioned.”
  • however, this is the best I can do for now.”
  • yes, there is some room for improvement.”
  • could you show me how else can be done?”

Don’t argue who is right and who is wrong. There is no point in it.
Validate what people are telling you and then move on or add your side of things in an elegant manner without using terms such as “but” and “why.” Replace them with yet, however, and, I want to add.

Learn to adapt and to be flexible.

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How to adapt and increase your flexibility levels:

  • Set the expectations for yourself for different situations, environments, and circumstances.
  • Make a doable plan and rehearse it for those types of situations that you know you have difficulties to behave the way you want.
    Understand that you can’t always win, not even when you are right about something or entitled to get what you want.
  • Expect the unexpected. Life happens even when you stay still.
  • Celebrate your achievements and successes; get curious about what didn’t work when you are not satisfied with your results.
  • When you are faced with challenges, start from an “I can” position. Most things that you encounter in life you can; it is just a matter of learning or discovering how to.
  • Build an attitude of willingness to search, notice and take the opportunities given to you.
  • Accept the fact that each person is entitled to his/her opinions and perspective on things.
  • Keep an open mind and demonstrate to yourself and others that you can, and you are willing to incorporate new information into what you already know or believe.
  • Train your mind to switch with ease from detailed thinking to overall thinking.
  • Get creative – search for new ways to deal with and solve problems; don’t be scared to improve, change or experiment new ways with the understanding that change may not come easily to you but is almost always possible and doable.
  • Readjust your ways of doing things: the methods, the approach and the tools you’re using to suit the situation you are in.
  • Don’t get stuck in your procedure or constantly bouncing back between countless options.
  • Find solutions, don’t search for culprits.
  • Keep your priorities in order accordingly to the situation.
  • Show initiative and take the responsibility for your actions. Taking the responsibility makes you the cause and not the victim.
  • Be willing to learn new things even in those areas that you believe you know it all.

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