Practice management: Know, manage and choose your emotions

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Emotional intelligence is recognising, understanding and choosing how we think, feel, and act. Emotional intelligence has five components.

Wednesday, February 10th 2010, 2:20PM

1. Know your emotions
What upsets you and how are you handling it? Think about your emotional triggers. Is it being in a traffic jam, or maybe your teenager rolling her eyes? When you figure out what your emotional triggers are, you can become proactive and use your emotional intelligence.

2. Manage your emotions
We speak to ourselves between 600-800 words per minute and 75% of these words are usually negative. Unfortunately, your brain believes what you say. You need to replace those negative thoughts with positive thoughts, a positive mantra.

What does your body do when you get emotional? Many times, when we get emotional we stop talking, or we don't realise what's coming out of our mouths or we explode in anger! You need to be aware of how you react to certain emotions so you can be proactive.

3. Recognise emotions in others
Seven percent of your communication is verbal, our words. Thirty-eight percent is pitch and tone, the way we say things. Fifty-five percent is our body language.

It's often the way we say things that get us in trouble. Be aware of the emotions reflected in your pitch and tone, and be aware of others' pitch and tone. Listen for how you say things to your employees, peers and family.

We have to constantly be aware of what our body language could be saying and what others could be telling us. Our body language can redefine our message with a simple gesture.

You might say nicely, "Can I help you?" but your body language might indicate, "I don't care," because your eyes have slightly rolled. You may have your arms crossed, which can mean, "I don't care what you have to say" or "I am not going to agree to this change." Hands on the hips can mean, "I'm right and you're wrong" or "I am better than you."

Being aware of body language is the quickest way to gauge others' emotions; just look at them.

4. Choosing your emotions
What is the number-one obstacle that is stopping you from choosing? You! You choose to be mad, you choose to be glad, you choose to be sad. No one else can choose for you.

5. Handling your emotions in relationships
People are not difficult, they are just different. We seem to get emotional over these differences and we define people as difficult. The Myers Briggs Personality Indicator, the D-I-S-C profile and many others provide insight into others, as well as yourself.  By understanding differences and emotional characteristics, you can get more of what you want from you relationship with others.

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Candy Whirley is a professional speaker and leadership and team-building expert who has been addressing audiences for 20 years and consulting companies for eight years. She has co-authored several books, including Ordinary Women. .Extraordinary Success and Magnetic Leadership.  Her entire 2008 Annual Meeting presentation is available at www.mdrtpowercenter.org.

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