What, me worry?

Can we bring an attitude of openness and curiosity as we reflect on the three questions: what worked, what didn't work, and what could we do differently next time? If we are pleased with our performance, let's thoroughly celebrate and congratulate ourselves for all our hard work (while being careful not to fuse with `I am the greatest! If our performance didn't meet our expectations, we need to practise self-acceptance: defuse from harsh self-judgements, speak to ourselves kindly, come back to our values, and commit to learning and growing from the experience. Listening gives everyone involved an opportunity to make a contribution to the solution of a problem. This therapeutic process can result in reconciliation and healing. To resolve a conflict by being an effective listener, it's important to try to understand why the other person is really upset: Listen to the reasons the other person gives for being upset. Make sure you understand what the other person is telling you--from his or her point of view. Repeat the other person's words, and ask if you have understood correctly. Ask if anything remains unspoken, giving the person time to think before answering. Resist the temptation to interject your own point of view until the other person has said everything he or she wants to say and feels that you have listened to and understood his or her message. The velvet hammer is an extraordinarily powerful emotionally intelligent skill that gives us the ability to grow and change safely within our relationships. Composed of other skills that give it force and flexibility, fearlessly facing and resolving conflict without compromising ourselves is the key to sustaining long-lasting relationships. Ask him to show his line of reasoning. When you look more sensitive to mentors, they tend to appear magically before your eyes. Critical thinking is a very useful capacity and nowadays very sought after by society, both at work level and in other aspects of life. Therefore it is of great interest to be able to enhance it. For this purpose we have various activities and habits that can be useful to us. Try to keep an open mind We all have our opinions about our surroundings.

However, to think critically, it is necessary to keep in mind that ours or the explanation that society offers may not be the only one or the most accurate. It is more complicated than it seems, but we must allow in our mind the acceptance of other positions, however different they may be from our own. Try to train empathy For most of us, this doesn't come naturally. When our minds start to criticise, we are easily hooked. Still, the moment that we realise we've been hooked, we can unhook ourselves and re-engage in the present. Finally, everyone likes to be appreciated, so let's make sure that we actively appreciate ourselves. Appreciate your commitment, appreciate everything you did that worked reasonably well, appreciate your own willingness to take a risk, and especially appreciate anything you did that was an improvement on last time, no matter how small it may be. This is essential, not only for self-acceptance, but also for ongoing energy, drive and enthusiasm. Hopefully you can see how all three phases of performance require us to play by the golden rule: The actions of confidence come first; The more we take the actions of confidence - the more we rely on ourselves to do the training, practise the skills, develop our mindfulness, step out of the comfort zone, face our challenges and learn from our failures - the more our performance improves. And the better our performance, the more likely we are to feel confident. But if we try to do things the other way around, to wait until we feel confident before we take action, it clearly won't work. No relationship thrives for long when conflicts can't be resolved in ways that improve connection. Resentment, bitterness, discontent, and disappointment, spoken or unspoken, will infect the quality of our relationships, making them toxic. No skill is more necessary for the health, well-being, and longevity of our relationships than the ability to resolve conflict. If you have come this far and read all or most of the material, give yourself a pat on the back. And if you actually practiced the longer exercises in article 4 and article 6, give yourself a big hand of applause. This isn't a article just about emotional intelligence; But one more thing still needs to happen before your brain, behavior, and emotional reality remain changed.

To ensure that what you have learned sticks, you need to practice. How long this is necessary depends on the consistency of your practice. If you practice daily for a month or two, that may be enough to achieve the results you have in mind. Being able to put oneself in the place of others makes it easy to understand how they have reached the conclusions they have reached. Some activity that can facilitate empathy is the realization of role-playings, theater, or the expression and communication of emotions and thoughts to others. Actively participate in debates The best way to increase competition in a capacity is to exercise it. Therefore, participation in forums and debates is very useful, when confronted in them the opinions, beliefs and data found by different people. Analyze texts and videos The analysis of different materials can help improve critical thinking ability. It is especially important to observe the possible objectives or the reasons that a person may have to create such material. You can start with simple material and clearly based on subjective elements, such as opinion columns or advertising elements. Later we can move forward incorporating more technical and apparently objective material. And it's worth a reminder that even when we do feel confident, that does not mean an absence of fear. No matter how skilled and accomplished we are, when we face a genuine challenge where something important is at stake, the fight-or-flight response will kick in. FINDING A HEALTHY BALANCE Read the sports section of any newspaper and you'll soon find stories of injured athletes. Often these stories applaud the athlete's heroic ability to play on despite intense pain. A classic example was Tiger Woods' stellar performance in the 2008 US Open: despite pain in his left knee, on which he had already had arthroscopic surgery on two previous occasions, he managed to win the tournament. This prompted his competitor, Kenny Perry, to comment that `He beat everybody on one leg.

In a similar vein, earlier in this article, I praised Joe Simpson's persistence and ability to focus on the task despite the agonising pain from his shattered leg. But we have to be careful; Many athletes get so focused on achieving their goals that they fail to pay attention to their bodies. If you practice less consistently, you will make less progress. Some of this may sound difficult, but in fact it isn't. It's actually fun, because the rewards for using emotionally intelligent communication are immediate and powerful. Unfortunately, if you don't have a plan for implementing the skills you have learned, chances are that you will forget to use them. Now that you have a blueprint, however, your odds for success are great if you personalize it to meet your own individual needs. Here are some questions to consider as you formulate a personal plan for making emotionally intelligent communication a permanent part of your life: What is your plan? Exactly how will you continue to use the nonverbal skills you have learned? Your daily interactions with other people offer unlimited opportunities for being aware of how you communicate nonverbally and where the skills you have learned can be applied to improve and enhance your connections with others. Take advantage of every opportunity you get by being aware of how you communicate with others and observing how different nonverbal communication techniques enhance those interactions. Avoid bandwagon and underdog effects Many people join an opinion because it is either supported by the majority or ignored by it. It is necessary that our thinking is not influenced by the fact that others pay more or less attention to the fact or information in question. Question stereotypes Society constantly generates stereotypes regarding a large number of issues. Try to choose one of them and look for information that puts it in question to see how well it serves to explain reality. Search and compare contradictory elements

It is easy to find publications on controversial topics on which there is no clear or certain general opinion. Looking for two conflicting opinions and analyzing each one of them allows us to observe what weaknesses these arguments have, helping to be able to analyze other future information. Research and train As a result, they may unnecessarily injure themselves, make the injury worse, or delay recovery by prematurely returning to the game instead of allowing time for proper healing. We see the same thing in the business world: the high-flyer who dedicates himself to work and achieves astonishing results but eventually comes crashing down with depression, addiction or a stress-related medical condition such as high blood pressure (or even a heart attack). We also see this happening with artists, writers, dancers, musicians and performers of all kinds: they are so extremely focused on achieving results that they neglect their own health and wellbeing. This cannot be sustained indefinitely; To sustain peak performance in the long term, there are no two ways about it: we have to look after our health and wellbeing. And that means not only taking care of our bodies, but also our relationships. Sadly, the world of `high achievers' is not only full of stress-related illness, but also heartbreak, divorce and broken families. Does it have to be this way? Naturally, excellence requires sacrifice. That's a given. Planned practice sessions of the exercises you have learned will provide increased improvements in your relationships with people who are as willing and eager as you to create a new level of trust and connection. With whom will you practice your new skills? This may seem like a difficult question to answer, but it really isn't. During casual interactions of daily life, you can be practicing at all times with unwitting participants. Notice how people react differently to you when you make changes or adjustments in the ways you approach or interact with them. Notice the satisfaction you feel when these small changes make your daily activities more pleasant and satisfying. Approach potential practice session partners with a positive attitude;