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Do you consider yourself an emotionally aware person? Being aware of your own emotions—anger, sadness, frustration, happiness—and appropriately regulating and expressing them is all part of being an adult. But even people who were taught how to manage their emotions as children can still use a refresher course in emotional awareness for adults. Here, Jason Kulpa shares four questions you can use as tools to boost your emotional awareness and increase your capacity for compassion.
Good emotional awareness improves self-understanding as well as work and personal relationships. A willingness to contemplate your emotional behavior is key to becoming more self-aware. You’ll gain insight into your thinking and feeling processes and better understand how others might perceive you.
- How Would I Describe My Communication Style?
Communication is critical for success in relationships, whether personal or work-related. Review some recent exchanges with family or team members. Would you describe yourself as clear or ambiguous? Subtle or bold? If you’re not completely happy with your communication style, what might you do to improve it?
- Do I Allow My Current Mood to Affect My Thoughts or Decisions?
Everybody has a bad day now and then. Kids misbehaving at breakfast or a long, rough commute are understandable reasons to feel irritated. But are you expressing that irritation at co-workers or making rash decisions based on the impatience you were feeling earlier in the day? The ability to leave personal feelings aside while communicating with others is a sign of well-developed emotional awareness.
- What Are My Emotional Strengths?
Understanding your emotional strengths is as important as understanding your job skills. You can’t be expected to fly an airplane without pilot training. However, if you want to fly a plane, there is a way to learn. And if you’re going to be a more compassionate person, there is a way to learn that, too. By contrast, identifying your strengths will also highlight your weaknesses. Think of this question as a job evaluation. You can’t improve if you aren’t willing to see your deficiencies.
- Can I Sense the Moods of Others or Identify My Mood?
It’s easy to assume someone is difficult, irritable, or purposefully uncooperative when they disagree with you. That puts you in the position of being right and labels the other person as being wrong. But it takes compassion to recognize when someone is operating from a place of fear or insecurity.
How might you treat a loved one or co-worker differently if you could sense they were feeling vulnerable and not purposefully trying to trip you up? Part of emotional awareness is a willingness to consider the emotional state of other people. But if you can’t identify your own emotions, you won’t be very good at seeing those of another.
A Final Thought
A journey to understand and increase emotional awareness takes courage. An honest appraisal of our behaviors and emotions—and the reasons behind them—can sometimes be painful. Despite the challenges, it’s a journey worth taking. When you increase your emotional intelligence, you improve every aspect of your life, starting with decision-making. Emotional awareness is integral to success in the workplace.
About Jason Kulpa
Jason Kulpa is a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of UE.co, San Diego’s Fastest Growing Business multi-year award winner, and a Certified Great Place to Work multi-year winner. Under Jason’s leadership, his team has volunteered many hours at dozens of events dedicated to improving his home community, San Diego, CA.
