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emotional intelligence
I am often asked the question – how can I change my behaviour when certain relationships push my buttons?
I am sure anyone reading this can identify. We all have blind spots in relationships and games that we have perfected over years to protect us from experiencing strong emotions.
A client I am coaching at the moment keeps bringing the agenda of procrastination to the coaching sessions. When exploring this further we looked at what was going on underneath the procrastinating behaviour? It turned out, that the procrastination had a direct link to motivation, confidence and fear of confrontation. So how can this be overcome?
Caroline Buchanan (author and journalist) has written a book called the 15-Minute Rule to help anyone that finds themselves procrastinating. She describes it "as a lifestyle tool that can work for anyone". When I started to reflect on my own habits I soon realised that there are tasks in my life that I can put off until they become critical.
An example of this played out in my life today. I have been coaching for over 15 years but up until this year I had yet to submit my hours and complete my coaching assessment for my ICF credentials. I made up many excuses and the one that I actually believed was that I didn't feel it stopped me getting work by not having it!
To some extent this has been true and I also felt that some of the best coaches I know don't have the credentials. However I also knew that at the back of my mind there was a slight fear that I might fail my assessment. So I put this off for years! My deadline for completion of the assessment was 6th May 2017, and this morning after reading the first part of this book I set aside 3 hours in my day to complete 155 online questions about coaching competencies. I split the 3 hours into 15 minute segments and I just started. I am pleased to say that it worked and I have just received my results. I achieved 81% (the pass is 70%). I now feel proud and motivated to continue with the next stage of my development. So sometimes we need a strategy to overcome our fears and just do it.
The 15-Minute Rule is made up of six stages that will help you with whatever you wish to achieve.
I would recommend Caroline Buchanan's The 15 Minute Rule - it is a great and easy read and if followed will stop procrastination and help you take control.
Goal Direction is one aspect of Emotional Intelligence. This book will certainly help you more towards your goals in a balanced manner.
One of the many acquired methods I learnt during my executive coaching training was how to spot and work with the inner critic of a client (as well as my own).
In her book "The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women", Valerie Young offers an empowering plan to overcome the needless self-doubt that keeps them from feeling as intelligent and competent as everyone else knows they are.
In her decades of in-the-trenches research on women’s self-limiting feelings and beliefs about themselves and their success, Valerie Young has uncovered the often surprising reasons why so many accomplished women feel as though they are “faking it” – impostors in their own lives and careers.
While the"impostor syndrome" is not unique to women, they are more likely to agonise over tiny mistakes and blame themselves for failure; see even constructive criticism as evidence of their shortcomings; and chalk up their accomplishments to luck rather than skill. When they do succeed, they think “Phew, I fooled them again”. Perpetually waiting to be “unmasked” doesn’t just drain a woman’s energy and confidence, it can make her more risk-averse and less self-promoting than her male peers, which can hurt her future success.
As a coach I believe it is my role to be alert to warning signs that my client's saboteur may have taken control of their voice box - I tend to do this when I have a sense of circling the issue round and round and round. You can spot this for yourself - what are the constant self-limiting conversations that you have about yourself that just aren't true?
I ask my clients to personify it. Give it a name - who is speaking here? What is this voice saying? How would you describe the voice? Who's voice is it? Name your impostor - what would you call it?
Challenge yourself - what is the real truth, not the impostor's version? Accept that getting a promotion or moving towards your dream will be an exciting adventure that will bring up many emotions. Don't let the negative emotions stop you fulfilling your potential or enjoying it when you get there.
Develop your Self Regard - accept and value yourself. Once a day take few minutes to notice your 'inner critic' and challenge it with the question "is that really true?" and then affirm yourself - you are worth it.
Have fun and play with it - life it too short. I love Marianne Williamson quote "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world."
I now run a coaching programme to help women, and men overcome their 'Impostor Syndrome'. I asked one of my clients to write a testimonial for me - we had fun working with our impostors on many occasions during this coaching relationship.
"Amanda’s talent lies in her unerring ability to ask the right question, listen to the answer - and hear what you’re not saying. She will - with kind, insightful persistence – bring to the surface deep, simple truths. And if you’re open to listening, you’ll come to understand the simplest truth: that the only person with the power to hold you back – or drive your success - is yourself. With Amanda’s encouragement, you can focus on what really matters, and take responsibility for the small steps which make a lasting change. Good coaches don’t always make it easy or comfortable. But they do provide a safe place where you can discover in yourself and others the small number of things that make the biggest difference. And Amanda is a brilliant coach."
Contact Amanda Wildman at amanda@emotionally-i-fit.com or call her on 07815 743045 to find out more.
I am often asked the question – how can I change my behaviour when certain relationships push my buttons?
I am sure anyone reading this can identify. We all have blind spots in relationships and games that we have perfected over years to protect us from experiencing strong emotions.
Dr. Eric Berne is the author of Games People Play, the groundbreaking book in which he introduces Games and Transactional Analysis to the world. According to Dr. Berne, games are ritualistic transactions or behaviour patterns between individuals that can indicate hidden feelings or emotions. A runaway success, Games People Play spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list in the mid 1960s – longer than any non-fiction book over the preceding decade. Games People Play and Transactional Analysis have gone on to influence and inspire millions of people, including Thomas A. Harris, author of I’m OK – You’re OK and Muriel James, author of Born to Win.
Emotional Intelligence is a combination of attitudes and behaviours that distinguish outstanding performance from average performance. It provides a framework for understanding how you manage yourself to be personally and interpersonally effective. Your emotions are influenced by your attitudes. In particular, your attitude towards yourself and your attitude towards other people. There are 16 dimensions relating to Emotional Intelligence that great leaders will display. In these interviews, we are going to explore how successful leaders demonstrate these EI behaviours in their work.
Amanda Wildman - Director of Emotionally-i-Fit is an expert in Emotional Intelligence and leadership development.
Emotionally-i-Fit runs assessments, coaching programmes, workshops and leadership retreats that help leaders and organisations to measure and develop the 16 metrics of Emotional Intelligence.
Empathy is the degree to which a person is in touch with the feelings of others. It is a dimension of emotional intelligence and can have a massive impact on emotional engagement of employees at both an individual level but also at an organisational level. The degree to which a leader is in touch with the feelings of others will be based on how aware they are of themselves - their emotions from a physiology perspective, their feelings, intuitions and to some degree, their thoughts. From an organisational perspective, engagement surveys regularly check and measure how people feel and provide a significant amount of information that assesses this. The challenge with this is that once an organisation has this information, it needs to do something different to make changes, if appropriate, based on what it has learned.
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK and the theme is on relationships. Building healthy relationships and connections both personally and professionally can have a significant impact on performance and our health.
'A leader without a great team, or without an excellent relationship with his team, will struggle to achieve greatness, as a leader cannot do everything themselves.' - Gordon Tredgold
