Navigating Emotional Intelligence: A Journey of Self-Reflection, Growth, and Cultural Adaptability

Question

How can self-awareness and self-management, as components of Emotional Intelligence, contribute to personal and professional growth?

Answer

Introduction:

This paper runs a self-reflection on the test outcome of Emotional Intelligence (EI) following Daniel Goleman’s EI model. I will analyze the test result based on the two main factors of the EI model – self-awareness and self-management. Notably, EI is a critical aspect of social intelligence. The concept of EI comprises two factors – emotion and intelligence. EI can perceive, understand, express, and regulate emotions to promote personal growth (Manca, et al., 2020). I undertook the EI test and scored 5 for self-awareness, 8 each for self-management and social awareness, and 6 for relationship management. For this task, I will only deal with the marks scored for self-awareness and self-management to see what it implies and how can improve those aspects for a better version of myself. I guess this particular psychometric test is quite effective in gaining insight into the human mind and extracting valuable outcomes.

Evidence of the Growth of Self-Awareness:

Self-awareness is a critical factor of the EI model, wherein I scored 5 out of 10 in that particular quadrant. It is the ability to understand the emotions of individuals and identify the consequences of contemplating decisions (McCallops, et al., 2019). It indicates I have little idea about myself, rather a vague idea. I failed to have a realistic evaluation of myself showing a lower level of self-confidence. Self-awareness can be further divided into three categories – emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. Emotional self-awareness is about sensing feelings and identifying them.

The test result is an eye-opener to me as I understood that I have little awareness of my emotions. It may be due to less focus on my emotional pursuits, rather it is quite significant. Unless I come to terms with my emotions or facts concerning me, I cannot contemplate effective decisions whether personal or business. So, I need to work on these things to earn self-confidence and grow in my career. Firstly, I ought to understand my emotions without any inhibition. We often hide our emotions or accept the fact of who we are, rather than try to be superficial (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2017). This does not help us in the long run.

I realized meditation is an effective thing to calm myself and downloaded the meditation app – Calm. The app helps learn different meditation skills such as focused breathing, mental precision, and self-accuracy (Crum, et al., 2017). Calm is helping me to control my emotions and letting me understand better who I am. So, I am getting clarity of my emotions and understanding. It is helping me to strengthen my accuracy in self-assessment. Since meditation is calming my mind, I am getting more focused on whatever I am doing. This particular test has led to a new perceptive in my life and a better self-awareness strengthening my self-confidence.  

Meditation has also led me to the concept of mindfulness. It is the practice of intricate awareness of feelings, thoughts, surroundings, and bodily sensations (Manca, et al., 2020). Through this, I can control my thoughts and emotions rather than spilling them away. I wonder if I get to appear again in the psychometric test, I can improve the result significantly. Because this time, I am more confident and aware of myself which was lacking last time.

Evidence of the Growth of Self-Management:

Self-management is another feather in the EI model proposed by Goleman. It is about emotional self-control, adaptability, transparency, achievement, and optimism (McCallops, et al., 2019). The psychometric test which I attempted secured around 8 in this quadrant. I guess it is a pretty decent score implying my finesse in this aspect. Self-management helps to adapt to situations and control impulses (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2017). I am quite efficient in that matter but need to continue delivering such an outcome to stay relevant in the scenario.  

I scored 8 out of 10 do not indicate that the trend will continue throughout. I ought to develop myself further in controlling my emotions and optimizing my achievements (Goleman, 2020). For this, I am resorting to meditation as it can calm my mind, and the meditation app – Calm is doing wonders. Now, I am more restrained and portray myself better to the people around me. The phenomenon paved benefits both in my personal and professional lives. I am practicing meditation daily and it is making me more organized in life. Organization is bringing stability in life and I owe this aspect to meditation to help me have a calm mind.

Indeed, a calm mind leads to effective decisions in life and I am realizing that daily use of Calm is strengthening my EI capabilities. Self-management is a crucial aspect of EI as it inculcates a cultural discipline in us (Beugelsdijk & Welzel, 2018). The way we portray ourselves, control our emotions, and adopt flexibility is the outcome of expressive self-management. The criterion is sought-after to progress in life and I am trying to adapt myself to different scenarios to survive the game. I realized if I can control my emotions, it gradually leads to the attainment of cultural intelligence (CI).

CI is the ability to adapt to new cultures or given set-ups (Caputo, et al., 2019). Proper efficiency in self-management will help me to attain CI easily as flexibility is its crux. I owe much to my flexibility characteristic to help me gather and implement my self-management skills. Besides, CI is important for strengthening relationships with coworkers which is crucial in the current business scenario (McCallops, et al., 2019). I am focused on improving my self-management skills and guess the same is reaping positive fruits as I am becoming more open to people.

Implications in Future Career:

EI is a significant hallmark in contemporary business scenarios as it overtakes the relevance of intelligence quotient (IQ). It is because EI depicts the capability, and expertise to understand, evaluate, and manage the individual’s emotions (Beugelsdijk & Welzel, 2018). Notably, 20% of our success rate is owing to IQ, but the remaining 80% of the success is due to EQ (Goleman, 2020). If we cannot understand human emotions, our achievements ought to be incomplete. So, it is necessary to master the EI skills that pave the way to CI. EI provides the required fodder to grow in life like attaining a higher career growth.

EI is important to have a happy and purposeful life (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2017). People having EI is supposed to lead a successful and happy life. They tend to live longer and grow in their career. So, I aim to master EI as it will give me a suitable direction to pursue my career effectively and reach my targeted destination. Since it is a combination of both emotions and intelligence, it tends to cognitive mental functioning (Manca, et al., 2020). It is because EI helps individuals to place their emotions effectively as one can control their emotions. This is depicted even through different psychometric tests that bring out high scores on the four quadrants – self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

So, I tend to develop EI as a crucial skill that can help me go places. It is the collection of emotional, personal, and social skills and expertise to cope with the expectations of the surroundings (Goleman & Boyatzis, 2017). EI helps me to understand what I am and if I have a better understanding of myself, I can know my capabilities. This knowledge facilitates me to control my emotions and understand not only myself but those around me. It sets forth social and cultural rationing to have a diversified workplace.         

Accordingly, I have decided to undertake meditation sessions to strengthen myself mentally. I will set forth a target on the app – Calm to improve my meditation skills and get better control of my mind. If I can control myself mentally by keeping a tap on my emotions, I can attain exquisite outcomes (Caputo, et al., 2019). So, my focus is more on EI rather than IQ as it will eventually lead to CI. In the contemporary scenario, the co-existence of different cultures is the norm. EI will help me in this regard to work in a team amidst a multicultural set-up.

Conclusion:

The paper concludes that EI is a crucial aspect for us to succeed in life. Many of us uphold IQ to attain success, but 80% of the success instance is related to EI. So, mastering EI skills is a necessity in contemporary times. I took a psychometric test and found that I excelled in self-management but am poor in self-awareness. So, I need to know myself well and that can be done by having a calm mind. For that, I am undergoing meditation sessions to soothe my mind and attain clarity about myself. This thing will take me a long way in the upcoming future and climb up the corporate success ladder.