Your Happiness Factor

Self-awareness is a great help if you wish to live your best possible life. The ability to understand your own thoughts, feelings, and motivations. It is a key skill for success in all parts of your of life; from relationships to work and above all to personal development. There are many ways to increase self-awareness. Here are a few tips Pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. Throughout the day, take a few minutes to reflect on what you are thinking and feeling. What are you reacting to? Why? What us going on underneath in terms of your motivations? Journaling is a great way to track your thoughts and feelings. You can also use journaling to explore your values, goals, and dreams. Talk to a trusted friend or a life coach like me. Talking to someone else can help you gain a different perspective on yourself. Take a personality test. Personality tests, like Myers Briggs, can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, as well as your preferred ways of thinking and behaving.

Do you have emotional intelligence - what is your emotional intelligence quotient? "All learning has an emotional base." -- Plato The ability to express and control our own emotions is important to our success in life. But so is our ability to understand, interpret, and respond to the emotions of others. Imagine a world where you couldn't understand when a friend was feeling sad or when a co-worker was angry. Psychologists refer to this ability as emotional intelligence (EI). Emotional Intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, control, and evaluate emotions - your own and other peoples'. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic.  A number of testing instruments have been developed to measure emotional intelligence, although the content and approach of each test varies. The quiz at the link below presents a mix of self-report and situational questions relate

Robert Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Developing Empathy – Playing Emotional Charades I truly believe the greatest gift we can give ourselves and our children is the gift of empathy. That is the ability to see and feel life from someone else's perspective. Empathy is at the root of compassion and positive relationships as well as all good communication. Empathy is behind our ability to listen well and really understand what someone else is trying to tell us. It helps us to to frame and convey our messages to others. But, sadly, not all of us seem blessed with empathy by birth and up bringing. So, what can we do to develop our empathy skills? The following is a little exercise for children taken from a book that now sadly is out of print “Adventures in Guidance: How to Integrate Fun into Your Guidance Program ”. I believe it can easily be adapted for adults who would like to polish up their empathy skills. Emotional

  E motional intelligence (EQ) helps us interact with, and influence, others. The higher our emotional intelligence, the more like we are to be able to get on with others. In 1996 Daniel Goleman wrote his groundbreaking book " Emotional   Intelligence ". His exhaustive research had shown him that success in all parts of our lives is based more on our ability to handle   emotions   than on our intellectual capability or our physical strength. People with high Emotional Intelligence can understand emotions – their own and other people’s, They can make their emotions and their understanding help them to empathise with others, to understand them and to handle their emotions. For example, they are much less likely to be overwhelmed by someone bursting into tears, People with high EQ are generally open and pleasant to be around.  They tend to pick up and understand those little non-verbal messages we send with body language, posture and tone of voice. In