How To Guides – Small Business Guides

Anger is a natural emotion all of us experience in response to a perceived threat to or a violation of the self. We all have the right to be angry. In fact, not being able to express it can be harmful to the health and to our relationships. That sure does not mean we go around screaming at people we are angry at.

The way people react is conditioned by the social and psychological development. Anger is determined by the conscious and the unconscious mind, and this would influence the way people express their feelings, including anger.

When we bring our awareness into the expression of anger, it is said to have positive outcome and when we get our hurt feelings out, it helps our psychological health. Chronic anger not handled appropriately by expression can be very bad to health and even lead to diseases of the heart, gastrointestinal and skin.

Anger is expressed in several ways, by aggressiveness, assertiveness or by being passive. When we act aggressively and abuse the other person either verbally using words that hurt them or physically by using our fists, the relationship suffers; when we remain passive by denying this anger and we repress it by saying nothing about the issue, we suffer. The best way to express anger is by being assertive, which eventually helps resolve issues with discussion as well as enhances interpersonal relationships.

The first step to handling anger is to be aware of the danger signals that accompany anger, and then decide if a response is worthwhile and react accordingly. Impulsiveness never helps in any aspect of life. Giving ourselves time to think before taking an action, saves us a lot of trouble. Continue Reading →

Rate yourself on the following items on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the low and 5 high). This exercise aims at fact-finding and not fault-finding, and is intended to help you focus on areas for self-improvement.

1. I stay relaxed and composed under pressure

2. I can identify negative feelings without becoming distressed

3. I stay focused (not lost in unimportant details) in getting a job done

4. I freely admit to making mistakes

5. I am sensitive to other people’s emotions and moods

6. I can conceive feedback or criticism without becoming defensive

7. I calm myself quickly when I get angry or upset Continue Reading →

Emotional Intelligence is the capacity to recognize your own feelings and those of other people, to be able to motivate yourself, to manage emotions in yourself and in your relationships. Chris Walkins

History of ‘Emotional Intelligence’

In 1985 a graduate student in the USA wrote a doctoral thesis which included the term ‘emotional intelligence’ in the title. This was the first-ever-academic use of the term emotional intelligence, popularly known as EQ … Emotional Quotient.

Then in 1990 the research work of two American university professors, John Mayer and Peter Salovey, was published in two academic journal articles. Mayer (University of New Hampshire) and Salovey (University of Yale), were trying to develop a way of scientifically measuring the difference between people’s ability in the area of emotions. They found out that some people were better than others at things like identifying their own feelings, identifying the feelings of others, and solving problems involving emotional issues.

Since their work in 1990 these professors have developed different tests to measure what they call “emotional intelligence.” Because nearly all of their writings have been done in the academic community, their names and their actual research findings are not widely known.

Instead, the person most commonly associated with the term emotional intelligence is a New York writer named Daniel Goleman who had been writing articles for the magazine ‘Popular Psychology’ and then later for the New York Times newspaper. Around 1994, he was evidently planning to write a book about “emotional literacy.” For that book he was visiting different schools to see what programs they had for developing emotional literacy. He was also doing a lot of reading about emotions in general. In his insatiable thirst for reading, he came upon the work of Professors Mayer and Salovey. At some point it seems that Goleman decided to change the title of his upcoming book to “Emotional Intelligence”, and this book instantly became an international best seller.

In this book, Goleman has collected a lot of interesting information on human brain, emotions, and behaviors.

Definition

Emotional intelligence is the capacity for effectively recognizing and managing our own emotions and those of others.

Research and experience demonstrate that while some aspects of our personalities are fixed, the way we act out those qualities is ours to choose. In other words:

• We do not choose our characteristics, but we do choose our characters

• We do not choose many of the events of our lives, but we do choose how we react to them.

Emotions have the potential to get in the way of our most important business and personal relationships. According to Professor John Cotter of the Harvard Business School, ‘because of the furious pace of change in business today, difficult to manage relationships sabotage more business than anything else — it is not a question of strategy that gets us into trouble, it is a questions of emotions’. Continue Reading →

The key that opens your mind and heart to better job performance, an enriching career and life is your attitude. All of us want success; we want good results in all walks of life, in our homes, in work and in all our relations. The most important single factor that guarantees positive results is the Positive Mental Attitude !

A positive mental attitude helps you:

- Consider your neglected and misunderstood fact
- Summary: Job as a part of the larger pattern of your organisation
- Utilise your potential when dealing with other employees and customers
- Understand how your own attitude affects other people’s attitudes and performance

The noted American trainer and motivator, Zig Ziglar, remarks: Positive attitude is the result of new thinking …… believing in yourself, focussing on successes, learning from failures and surrounding yourself with people who share your values, principles and thinking. Positive attitude won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking. It will let you use your abilities and capabilities. Continue Reading →