5 Emotional Characteristics That Will Help You Meet Your Goals
In many places you hear about personal development but very few people understand how it can be achieved. That is normal, since it is a rather abstract idea, a process, a path along which one walks over a long, long time.
Managing to grow as a person is a difficult task that takes time and patience, with emotions playing a crucial role in its achievement. Emotional intelligence is essential to achieve personal development.
Let’s discover the key emotional characteristics to achieve our goals aspects that will allow us to have an ideal emotional state to improve as individuals and achieve what we set out to do.
Personal development is something that has become very fashionable in recent times. And it makes all the sense in the world, because the way it is presented to us is the key to being a happy person, being successful in life and being better prepared for the more than likely problems that may arise in life. However, how do we achieve it? ¿What are the keys to personal development? The answer may not seem too simple.
Personal development draws a lot from emotional intelligence. Having the ability to identify emotions in oneself and in others well developed is something that certainly helps in our development as people. For this reason we can say that the key to achieving it is found in the world of emotions and for this reason we are going to delve into the following emotional keys for personal development.
1. Enjoy solitude
This is a point that many people find difficult, but it is essential to develop as people. Being alone with yourself is a very good experience to delve deeper into your own emotions, opinions, desires and feelings , a moment in which we can better know the most important person in our lives: ourselves. It is also that ideal time to give yourself self-love, take care of yourself, and satisfy your own needs.
Filtering the information that comes to us is a very important emotional key, although at first it seems that it has little to do with our emotions. However, the truth is that information is based on stimuli that awaken emotional reactions in us and, therefore, Knowing how to filter is also a way of selecting what we want to affect us emotionally
That is why we must filter the information and let through the information that makes us grow, keeping away from us the information that is toxic or blocks us. Therefore, if necessary, it is advisable to leave your cell phone turned off, not watch the news on television or disconnect from the networks. If their messages provoke emotions in us that prevent us from developing, why do we want to know that information?
3. Express emotions openly
We live in a culture where sometimes expressing our emotions is seen as a sign of weakness As a society we should be learning that, as long as they are expressed in an assertive way and with the aim of improving, saying how we feel should not be interpreted as anything bad.
If something makes us uncomfortable or we disagree with something a boss or co-worker has said or done, we should tell them by controlling our tone and taking advantage of the energy that has arisen from our discomfort to change things, preferably for the good.
4. Self-knowledge
Closely related to the previous key, a mandatory action to grow as a person is to practice self-knowledge. In fact, for some it is the first emotional step to personal development. We must do an attempt at deep introspection by answering the following questions whose answer will undoubtedly make us improve:
5. Patience
Personal development is something everyone longs for but, like everything good in this life, it takes a while Growing as a person is not something that is achieved overnight, but rather it is a process where the individual discovers their strengths, weaknesses, what they want in life and how to achieve it along the way. As in any process, there will be ups and downs, identity crises and moments of low morale, but if you are constant and patient it will be a matter of time before personal development is achieved.
You may be interested: “How to be more patient with others and with projects: 7 tips”
Trying to please everyone is physically and psychologically exhausting, as well as a waste of time. It is difficult to admit it, but we must accept it: not everyone can like it. We are always going to meet people who don’t like us in the same way that we ourselves encounter individuals who, without having done anything wrong to us, we cannot stand.
If we live according to the expectations and tastes of others we are not being authentic. It is natural to want others to love us, but everything has a limit. If there comes a time when in order to please another person we have to give up important parts of our personality, we will stop living our life and live someone else’s.
Related article: “Do you really know what self-esteem is?”
7. Think positive
Thinking positively is a classic in all self-help manuals and guides to grow as a person, which is why some may feel it as a recommendation devoid of meaning. It is true that thinking positively does not guarantee that we will be successful in everything we do, it would be very naive to believe that. In life there are moments of success and others of failure, but it is our attitude that can make the difference The fruitful moments will be more if we adopt a positive vision, seeing the glass half full instead of half empty.
8. No more comparisons
Comparisons are hateful, and even more so if we are the ones who compare ourselves to others. It is normal for us to compare ourselves because at the end of the day, people have references and we want to be like them, but we must understand that When we do it we are spending a lot of energy the same energy that we could be investing to grow as people in every way.
To give a very basic example: we want to be in shape and we keep comparing ourselves to influencers who are very fit. Instead of spending hours on Instagram gossiping about profiles of fit people, we can spend that time in the gym and get in shape once and for all.
You may be interested: “Festinger’s theory of social comparison”
You cannot grow as a person if you are not a good person. The absence of empathy is a major obstacle in our path to personal development. It is essential to know how to put yourself in the shoes of others In fact, we can affirm that empathy is one of the most important qualities in our lives and the basis of emotional intelligence. We must make an effort to admit the emotions of others, apply active listening, understand what those people we care about go through, understand their thoughts and feelings, even what they do not express to us verbally.
Related article: “Empathy, much more than putting yourself in someone else’s shoes”
10. Create healthy social relationships
Finally, it is worth mentioning that an emotional key to personal development is knowing how to create healthy social relationships. Friends, family, partner… All of them are relationships that can greatly influence our mood and, consequently, mediate our personal success through motivation. For example, a toxic relationship, in which there are screams, reproaches and acidic comments, are not going to help us grow as people because we are going to be frustrated, in a bad mood and always ruminating on something bad that has been said about us.
The best way to create healthy relationships is to develop skills aimed at conflict resolution, assertively communicate how we feel and make the decision to end a relationship when necessary, even if it is an extreme measure. Although it hurts us, if a family member, friend or partner behaves badly towards us or does not contribute anything to us, it is best to get rid of that relationship and try to live without it. We cannot grow as a person if we suffer because of someone who acts as a burden in our lives.
