Emotional Intelligence Skill – Key Stress Reliever

As we are confronted with today's overwhelming challenges, the key to becoming resilient is to enhance emotional intelligence. With the unrelenting demands of our environment, it's not uncommon for us to experience high levels of stress and, ultimately, its detrimental effects. At work we are confronted with growing challenges as people are let go and we must do more with less - faster, better and cheaper. And at home we face additional demands from the expectations of our spouse, children and home needs. On top of that, we are bombarded daily with distressful world events and other issues: the economy, how it affects our retirement plans, politics, local and world discord, and more. Without the right skills to handle these ever increasing challenges, our performance and our health suffer. While we can't always change our environment, we can change how we perceive and react to stressful events.

The Effect of Emotion on Performance:

Whether we realize it or not, our emotional response to the challenges (or demands/expectations we face directly affects our performance. It is not the stressful event itself that is the root cause of stress. Rather it is the reaction to the event that results in stressful feelings.

The following story provides a good example of how our emotions affect our performance. Imagine that I hire you for a position you particularly desire. New to the job, you experience optimism, excitement and eagerness to perform well. And after a time of accomplishing your projects on time and meeting your goals, you feel successful. Based on your success, I assign you more projects, confident that you can handle them. As a matter of fact, I give you a lot more projects because we all have to do more with less. And I expect you to continue with your outstanding performance.

However, as the workload increases with project piled upon project, you start to question your abilities. You try your best, putting in extra hours, but find you can't meet the demands. You start feeling frustrated, anxious, and even fearful. Now your optimism and confidence is replaced with uncertainty, skepticism, and pessimism. With this frustration, you find yourself worrying, second-guessing yourself and wasting time – time that cannot be spared.

And your find your health suffering as you constantly operate in this emergency mode. Your negative emotions spark a cascade of some 1,400 biochemical events, some of which result in physiological changes such as increased blood pressure, heart rate, adrenaline and cortisol (the stress hormone). These events negatively affect your performance because theybecause these compromise your emotional balance, your mental clarity, and your physical energy. And as the frequency in which you experience negative emotions escalates, you find yourself becoming short with people, indecisive, defensive and sometimes angry with others when they ask you for support or when they don't support you. In addition, the problem is compounded exponentially because stress, like a virus, thrives in this toxic environment, increasing the likelihood that others are feeling the same negative emotions.

Emotion and Stress:

In some instances, we can change our environment and eliminate the stress. However, when we can't change the environment, the situation is not hopeless. Remember, stress occurs when people experience negative emotions as a result of their inability to handle the demands of their environment. Ultimately it is the individual's inability to transform negative emotions and beliefs that lies at the core of the problem. The word "unable" points toward our real leverage The word "unable" indicates that people don't know how to, in this case, manage their emotions about what is happening in the environment.

Actions:

Confronted with these almost overwhelming challenges, what can we do? The first and, perhaps the most important, action we can take is to develop our emotional self-awareness. Being aware of our emotions enables us to recognize those situations where we allow our negative emotions to creep in and take over. Next we need to develop our emotional self-management skills. Enhanced emotional self-management skills enable us to transform negative emotions into positive, productive feelings and behaviors. In this positive state, we are able to think more clearly, make better decisions, and perform well under pressure. Emotional self-awareness and self-management form the foundation of EI Competence.

Example – A True Story:

The following true story provides a powerful example of what can happen when you develop EI skills. Five days following a two-day EI training program for a group of high-potential directors and vice presidents I received this email from one of the participants: "I had been having an extremely stressful week with a crushing, impending feeling of failure/doom that I wasn't going to be able to get everything done to meet some very important deadlines. Since your course, I have been using all the techniques and am amazed how successful they have been. I have been able to get 'on top' of everything that needs to get done with little to no agitation. You very well may have helped me with one of the most significant, positive improvements I have ever made in my life."

The Point:

The key insights we can draw from this true story include the following:

- Despite today's overwhelming demands, we can improve our performance by developing EI skills.

- In a very short period of time, we can develop these skills and experience dramatic results - it doesn't take three to six months as some people suggest.

- We can easily manage high-stress situations with enhanced EI skills. We can manage negative emotions when they occur and prevent stress from accumulating with its potential negative health impact. We don't have to wait for a vacation, a yoga class, or meditation time.

Results from our programs support these points. A few months after our training, we conduct impact interviews with participants. Typically, participants report improvements ranging from 25% to 40% in mental clarity, 20% to 35% in personal productivity and 20% to 40% in stress reduction, as well as improvements in teamwork, management of emotional reactiveness, reduced conflict, creativity and other critical workplace issues.

About the Author:

Tailoring the art and science of Emotional Intelligence to your needs, Byron Stock focuses on results, helping individuals and organizations enhance emotional intelligence, leadership competencies and core values. Visit www.ByronStock.com to learn about his practical, user-friendly techniques to enhance Emotional Intelligence skills.

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