Emotional Intelligence Strategies for Workplace Happiness!
Article by :
Dr. Pratik P. SURANA (ACTP,Ph.D.,EQ I 2.0 Certified Assessor and Coach)
Chief Mentor and Founder
Quantum.
Skype: pratiksqicpl
Twitter: http://twitter.com/pratik05101974
Do you feel unfulfilled at work? Are you always waiting for your “It’s 6 o’clock somewhere” moment to happen, preferably in your time zone? Are you just living for the pay-check and anticipating the weekends? How do you handle those feelings on a day-to-day basis? Do you get frustrated, complain, become increasingly discouraged or feel defeated, despite your efforts to change your situation?
Are you on a pursuit to find your place in the world, and those questions resonated with you? I’m here to say, there is a better way to manage your emotions and perception so you can start living a more fulfilling, less frustrating and meaningful life today, and not only when you have landed your dream job. Here you will learn how to develop your Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Learning EQ strategies will provide you with an invaluable set of skills to help you engage more effectively at your workplace and in your life.
Emotional Intelligence deals with both your interpersonal and intra personal behaviour styles. By building your interpersonal EQ you will become more self aware and be able to manage your emotions better. Intra personal EQ strategies will help you enhance your engagement and relationships with others. Developing your emotional intelligence can help improve your communication skills, satisfaction and overall happiness in the workplace.
When I graduated college and started out at my first job, I found myself thinking, is this it? Creating budgets, attending meetings,presentations, mostly only looking forward to the weekends, waiting for pay-checks and scraping pennies together in the hopes to take a vacation once every couple of years. At that time, I believed that my job would provide me with much more fulfilment than it did. Oh…the lessons we will learn if we just give them a fresh new perspective and, of course, life experience.
I recently saw the movie Happy・. If you need some inspiration to help shift your perspective about life, I would highly recommend it. One of the major take-a-ways was that it does not matter what we do, what we achieve, or where we are in the socio-economic pool, we each have the right to decide for ourselves what we love and what makes us happy.
One of my favourite people interviewed in “Happy” was a man from New Orleans. He was asked the question, “What makes you happy?” Happiness for him happened when he was driving his swamp boat and being in the peaceful and adventurous beauty of nature. He said with joyful eyes and a bright smile, “You don’t know what you’re gonna see out here, but you’re gonna see something.”
“My job does not define who I am, but how I choose to live and engage in my life does.”
Happiness is a choice. If you are in a job where you are bored, or unchallenged most of the time and have a deep desire to do something else, don’t lose hope. Continue following your dreams with resilience and persistence. We all have to make choices in our lives that make the best sense for our lives at that particular time.
For some of us, that means keeping a job to pay living expenses, support a family, or build a business, etc. Even still, there is a huge opportunity to find deeper meaning in your daily life, while you are working at a regular job, and as you continue on your quest to finding your true place in the world. While none of my jobs to date have been my dream job, I am grateful for all of them because they have made me who I am today. I am now prepared for what’s next in my life. Now I can afford saying:
“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.”
A shift in perspective about my job allowed me to be more open to what was in my reach, instead of what had not yet materialized in my life. By doing so, I became conscious about how much I was missing out on in the present moment. Joy, laughter, gratitude and feelings of fulfilment now surrounds me abundantly.
I’m on my way to taking my business to heights, and in the meantime, I choose to live a fulfilled life while I’m pursuing my dreams. Here are a set of strategies to help maintain a healthy perspective about where we are all at in our journey.
Emotional Intelligence Strategies for Workplace Happiness:
- Be the change. When you are struck with an idea of how to make something better, or a new idea to implement, speak up. Don’t settle for what is. Share your voice. It’s your passion and purpose whispering to you.
- Know that you are right where you need to be.Have patience and compassion with yourself. Everything you have experienced is leading you to your life purpose.
- Be adaptable.Accept what is and then move to action. Learn to roll with punches. Being adaptable and flexible creates positive interactions and outcomes.
- Ask yourself what makes you happy. Without reservation or hesitation, allow the answers to rise to the surface. Take note of them. Then, do more of what makes you happy.
- Quality engagement and relationships. You never know who you are going to meet or how that person plays a role in your life. Treat every person with respect and dignity, no matter their station. Everyone deserves the right to be happy.
- Live in the now. Don’t live in the future, or the past. Each day and each moment has the potential to bring something significant to your life’s purpose. Pay attention.
- Have compassion for yourself and others. Begin with yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Work on what you can and accept what you cannot change. Also, learn to accept others for who they are, “warts” and all.
- Pay attention to the small moments.At the end of each day, reflect on all the things that you are grateful for, no matter how small. A beautiful breeze, moments of laughter, someone’s generosity, or an email from a loved one. It’s all about recognizing and appreciating the small moments that can bring us joy and propel us to happiness.
The most essential things I must do, are be flexible, adaptable, relax, and know that everything that I have experienced in my life has been a roadmap leading me to what’s next.
If everyone was just like me, the entire office would be made of Belgian chocolate and we’d watch movies all day, stopping only occasionally to nibble on the walls.
Unfortunately, my workplace is like everyone else’s: made of bland, inedible materials and filled with people who have different tastes, personalities and emotions.
Yes, I said “emotions.” Turns out those are allowed in the workplace these days. There’s even a buzzword, “emotional intelligence,” that’s all the rage in workplace guru circles. (All workplace gurus sit in circles because it’s very Zen and besides, what other shape would they sit in, an octagon?)
In brief, the growing interest in emotional intelligence stems from a slow-but-steady recognition that the people who inhabit office spaces are, in fact, human beings.
A person who is emotionally intelligent can recognize and understand his or her own reactions to workplace events, while also recognizing, understanding and appreciating the responses of others.
For too long, emotions have been unwelcome at work. We had a job to do, darn it, and we weren’t going to let silly things like feelings get in the way. So we stifled tears, anger (sometimes) and even passion, lest we risk seeming unhinged.
Enhancing emotional intelligence in the workplace has two pragmatic benefits.
The individual who can understand what sets him off or charges her up or what drives him nuts can harness those emotions, control them when need be and use them to better ends. And being able to read and react appropriately to the emotions of others makes a manager more effective and builds camaraderie among workers and stronger client connections.
It sounds strategic, but being emotionally smart will get you places.
For a company, fostering emotional intelligence leads to better collaboration and creates a happier, more productive operation.
“When you’re in a meeting and you’re presenting your case, how aware are you of how you’re feeling, why you’re doing what you’re doing and the impact what you’re saying is having on others,” Louise Altman said. “Non-verbal cues are coming all the time. Are you taking those cues in? Are you modifying your behaviour? Perhaps you can gauge whether you’ve reached a good time to stop talking and ask a question or two.”
“If you see someone crying in the workplace,” Kreamer said, “go up and have a conversation about it in a way that doesn’t make them feel ashamed. Find out what’s wrong. If you see some abusive behaviour going on at your office, go up to the person who did it and say, ‘What was going on there?’ We need to not be afraid to acknowledge that these emotions are there and to try to discuss them.”
Somewhere along the line we decided the way we interact in a work environment should be quite different than the way we interact with friends and family. That’s as it should be, up to a point. But it overlooks the fact that we don’t become robots when we walk through the office door.
We remain human beings throughout the day. Fleshy, warm-blooded, emotional.
Appreciate that. And hope that someday we can all work in office buildings made of rich Belgian chocolate ・ which would help smooth out everyone’s emotions.
If you find yourself in a job that just pays the bills, are feeling discouraged that you should have achieved certain things at this point in your life, and that you could be so much happier, when x-y-z happens. Remember, you hold the key to your happiness! Having a healthy outlook will have a positive influence on your environment and the people in it. No matter the job you hold, you have a choice to live with gratitude and acceptance about where you are in your life. Around every corner, there is potential for each of us to add something of value to the world. Changing the way you approach your daily routine can help you find deeper meaning in your life and have overall happiness in your workplace.