How to Apply Self-awareness and Emotional Intelligence to Change Your Life
I believe creating a new life is based on mastering two skills: self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
To apply these skills, first, define who you want to become.
Who is the person who is already living the life you want?
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How do they think?
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How do they act?
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How do they feel?
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How do they walk?
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How do they speak?
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What are their habits?
Next, your job is to practice being the person you want to be, every day.
To do this successfully, you practice self-awareness.
This means you catch yourself when you are not thinking, acting, or feeling in alignment with who you want to be and self-correct.
Developing the skill of self-awareness means that you shorten the amount of time you spend unconscious and are able to more quickly notice and self-correct when you are not in alignment with who you want to be.
To become who you want to be, you must also master emotional intelligence.
Developing and mastering this simply means that when you go into survival or stress, you know how to bring yourself back into a balanced and relaxed state more quickly.
There are many ways to bring yourself back into balance when you go into survival or stress (fight, flight, or freeze mode).
The most simple way, which is always instantly available, is to focus on taking slow deep breaths into the bottom of your belly until you notice a shift.
Once you’ve noticed a shift, and feel a state of calm or relaxation, check in and ask yourself, “Who do I want to be in this moment?” Then, act upon on the answer you get.
When you can shift your state in this way, you are applying both self-awareness and emotional intelligence.
When you have a vision for who you want to become, and you practice being that person every day and self-correct when you are out of alignment with your vision, you are changing yourself and your life in those moments — and every moment counts.
Mastering self-awareness and emotional intelligence is like mastering any other skill... it will take time, patience, and effort.
Just like learning any other skill, you must overcome your impatience and put in the daily work to achieve mastery.
If you are sincere in your efforts every day, when you least expect it, you will have become everything you've been practicing to be and it'll be effortless.
In the same way you drive or ride a bike effortlessly because you've practiced it for so long, you can do the same thing with becoming someone new.
With love and inspiration,
Jonathan
