The Critical Role of Self-Perception in Emotional Intelligence

In the previous post, I discussed what Emotional Intelligence means and why it has gained prominence. In this post, I’ll touch upon one of the various components of our personality that form the building blocks of Emotional Intelligence.

Before I demystify, I should tell you that the various building blocks I’m going to talk about are based on the EQi2.0 framework by Multi Health Systems. While there are many frameworks to measure Emotional Intelligence, this one is my personal favorite because of it’s simplicity and effectiveness to help an individual improve her/his Emotional Intelligence.

In this post, we’ll learn about the building blocks of Emotional Intelligence and go in depth the first component. As we go through each of these components, I encourage you to see the linkages between them. It’ll help you identify the drivers of various events in your life. Feel free to ask me questions in the comments section.

The Emotional Intelligence has 5 Key Components to it –

1. Self Perception
2. Self Expression
3. Interpersonal
4. Decision Making
5. Stress Management

Each of these 5 components has 3 sub-components.  Let’s go through them in detail.

Self Perception

In a nutshell, Self Perception is how well do you know about yourself!

It means that you not only know your Strengths and your Weaknesses but also your Emotions and their causes. Remember, awareness is the first step.

The more you know about them, the higher your Self Perception is.

Self Perception has 3 sub – components, they are:

1. Self Regard
2. Self Actualization
3. Emotional Self Awareness

a. Self Regard

 It is your ability to know and embrace your strengths and weaknesses. The key here is not just knowing them but also willing to accept them as-is. It’s important to love yourself in spite of your weaknesses. Higher Self Regard indicates that the individual is strong from within and is high on Self Confidence.

b. Self Actualization

 Self Actualization is the willingness to persist with work towards accomplishing your objectives. This will involve:

• Improving one self to acquire the skills needed
• Tenaciously trying to accomplish the objectives that you set for yourself

Higher Self Actualization will help an individual lead a life that is enjoyable and meaningful. In short, it has a direct correlation with happiness.

If you closely observe, Self Actualization will help in improving confidence. This, in turn, will result in improving Self Regard.

 As we go along discussing about each of the aspects of Emotional Intelligence, you would see a linkage between various components.

c. Emotional Self Awareness

 Emotional Self Awareness is your ability to:

• Understand your own emotions
• The causes of those emotions
• The impact of these emotions – both physiological as well as psychological
• The thoughts and the actions caused by these emotions

This in depth understanding of the cause and effects of your emotions will help you improve your effectiveness and your performance.

Summing Up

The first component of Emotional Intelligence, Self Perception, will help you by increasing the awareness about yourself, gives you better direction, improves your self confidence and helps increase the quality of your life.

We will cover about the other components in subsequent posts.

STAY HAPPY, STAY BLESSED!

(Aditya Kuchibhotla is a Career Coach and a Life Coach helping people with their personal and professional aspects. You can reach out to him on his website www.adityakuchibhotla.com)