Ways to Increase Your Personal Power through Emotional Intelligence
13 May 2008Personal Power is an Emotional Intelligence (EQ) competency
you’re probably familiar with by another name. It’s your sense
of being able to handle yourself and your life. It’s the
opposite of the “victim” position, where you feel helpless and
hopeless. Instead, when you’ve developed your Personal Power,
you feel confidant to help yourself, and to ask for help when
you need it, and you feel positive about outcomes. You are more
willing to take action, and to use solution-focused
problem-solving, instead of emotion-focused problem-solving.
You may have thought when you read the title of this article, it
was referring to your power in the external world and it is, but
this comes only when you have the Personal Power within. You
create your world by your thoughts and beliefs, and if you feel
helpless and hopeless, you’ll create these outcomes. When you
have a quiet sense of Personal Power, you are able to accomplish
more, and will come to say, “If I couldn’t do it, nobody
could’ve.”
So how do you develop your Personal Power? You can’t function
fully until you know yourself, and to know your SELF is to know
your FEELINGS. We are our emotions and they are there to guide
us.
People in the victim position don’t know what they think or
feel, and feel they have no rights. Assertiveness is believing
in rights - yours and others. It means treating others with
respect, and yourself as well. The cornerstone of Emotional
Intelligence is self-awareness, and you begin this by doing an
EQ Checkin often during the day. Ask yourself, “How am I
feeling, emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually?”
I’ve found in teleclasses that most people can talk immediately
about how they feel physically, but don’t know what “mentally,”
“emotionally,” and/or “spiritually” mean, so I’ll define them so
you can get started.
HOW DO YOU FEEL MENTALLY? This refers to your ability to think.
Are you alert? Full of ideas? Sluggish? Unable to process? If I
asked you to do a math problem, or generate some alternate
solutions to a dilemma, how would you do? This is what “mental”
is about - your ability to handle information, facts, draw
conclusions, formulate a thought, solve a problem, and perform
other thought processes.
HOW DO YOU FEEL EMOTIONALLY? Everyone takes a stab at this one,
but there are two ways to weasel out. One is to say, “I feel
like a wrung-out dishrag,” and the other is to say, “I think I’m
exhausted.” In the first case, you’re begging out, and in the
second case, notice the word “think” was used, which makes it a
mental process. Sometimes we lack the vocabulary, and emotional
expression is part of Emotional Intelligence. How do you feel
EMOTIONALLY? Here are some answers, and they begin with “I AM” -
sad, angry, frustrated, enraged, discouraged, tired,
overwhelmed, elated, optimistic, or resentful. Of course there
are many others. One thing you can do to increase your Emotional
Intelligence is to learn new words for feelings. Then apply them
to your situation.
It’s very common to feel “angry,” when it contains many layers.
It could be from frustration, fatigue, being too hot, having had
too much caffeine, righteous indignation, and a range from
“annoyed” to “enraged” or “ballistic.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL SPIRITUALLY? How you answer this depends upon
your understanding of a higher power in your life. Some people
answer this with “I don’t know.” Others will say, “I’m very
attuned with nature today. I had a long walk with my dog,” while
others will say, “I feel very connected to those around me. Very
warm and loved.” You could also say, “Close to God” or “I feel
good about life and myself.”
Most of us recognize a deeper level in our lives, be it through
religion, spirituality, art, culture, music, poetry or nature.
Being able to answer “How do you feel spiritually?” may take
some work on your part, but then so may the others.
Being able to answer these four questions gets you centered on
yourself. If you’ve been lacking in Personal Power, chances are
you may have been exercising too much empathy, or ignoring the
feelings of yourself and others, so you are not in touch with
your feelings. You often don’t know what they are!
Once you know how you feel, and what you want, you have a good
chance of getting it! This has nothing to do with manipulation,
by the way, nor is it heavy-handed power plays, forcing others
to do what we want. Intimidating others with words, threats or
body language is bullying. People do this who have an
exaggerated opinion of their own rights vs. those of others.
What’s confusing is that these tactics work … in the short-term
and temporarily. A demanding, intimidating person may be able to
get what she wants once, or in limited circumstances or vis a
vis other people with no Personal Power, but in the long run,
people will avoid, disrespect, or avoid her in the future.
Feeling your Personal Power and behaving in an appropriately
assertive manner allows other to respect you. It means stating
your position with clarity and confidence. It relieves stress in
your life because you cease tolerating behavior that’s offensive
or that drains your energy. At the same time, it increases your
chances of getting what you want, because first you must ask.
You might ask for more intimacy or more money, less work or less
noise, or some acknowledgement and some appreciation.
In order to claim your Personal Power, you need to have
self-respect. This is something you accomplish; it doesn’t just
happen. It means learning to truly love and value yourself,
albeit a work-in-progress. With Personal Power, you ARE, you
don’t DO. If you demand respect from someone, you may get it -
temporarily, reluctantly and with confusion (because the other
person senses you don’t respect yourself) and therefore they
don’t know how to give it to you. On the other hand, when you
are clear about who you are and how you expect to be treated, it
will happen.
Each time you fail to stand up for yourself, and treat yourself
poorly, or let others do so, you will lose ground you’ve gained.
Again, it’s a constant process. Eventually it becomes automatic
and part of you, but it takes time, and you will backslide. Each
time you do, process your feelings. How were you feeling
beforehand? How did you feel afterward? Would you be willing to
change your behavior so you don’t feel bad? (Yes!)
During the learning process you have to be patient with
yourself, and also mindful. You have to be able to catch
yourself immediately the minute you slip. If you entertain even
the thought of “I’m an idiot,” erase it. Replace it with
something positive. With time, only positive thoughts will enter
your self-talk, but only if you’re mindful about what you say to
yourself.
Here are some of the ways you can command respect:
Knowing your values and having standards, and behaving in
accord with them Your attitude How you treat yourself. If
you’re willing to abuse yourself, others will join right in.
Keeping good boundaries. Become committed to living your life
with joy, assertiveness and productivity, and refuse to engage
with people (even when family!) that can’t support this
approach. Watch your posture, eye contact, walk, and how you
hold your head and shoulders. Make your SELF known - have
opinions, state them, take part in conversations, be present and
fully engaged. Acknowledge compliments graciously. Say “thank
you,” instead of, “Oh, it really wasn’t much.” Stop
cross-thinking, i.e., did I say or do the right thing? Learn to
develop your intuition (an EQ competency), and to go with it and
trust it. With practice, you’ll act naturally and spontaneously,
and stop questioning yourself at every turn. Others will respond
to this. Eliminate complaining and worrying. They accomplish
nothing except to drag you down, and make others think less of
you. Use solution-focused problem-solving, not emotion-focused
problem-solving.
How to get started? Commit to a structured learning program.
Take The EQ Foundation Course©. It’s available on the Internet
and will give you the theory. Then work with a certified EQ
Coach. You need time, practice and feedback to change social and
emotional skills. You cannot JUST read about it. Then take
action. Put into practice what you’re learning. With time, you
can make great changes!
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