Follow–up on An introduction to emotional intelligence

Workshop Tutor: Samantha Tarren

Heres a summary of how I've been getting on with my action points

Hello Samantha!

I apologize for the delay in my blog entries. Unfortunately, I was unable to progress with my action points and follow-up posts as quickly as I wished.

As far as my last entry is concerned, I was analysing the importance of non-judgemental listening. I referred to Stephen Covey and his 7 habits of highly effective people. Since this last post, I have been trying to implement the active listening in day-to-day situations.

Having done the workshop on coaching, I found this area of self-development interesting. I have read a lot about coaching, its advantages and disadvantages and outcomes. Self-development as such is one of the main areas in which I can imagine myself in 3-4 years from now. Unlike mentoring, coaching is all about listening to other people so as to ask the right questions. What I started to do is the same thing. When talking to people, I try to listen more carefully. I pay more interest to their actual problems, and it works.

To demonstrate this on an example, couple of days ago I went with a friend of mine for coffee. She was going through a bad life situation, which she though is a vicious circle. I have known her since primary school, so I can say when her problem is real. In such situations, there is not a lot we as friends can do, but I tried to somehow help her to find a way out of it. Sometimes, asking right questions is enough. I have to admit, analysing things is what I am good at. So I wanted to let her to see the problem from different angles. I let her to do the analysis just by asking the questions such as: What can you do? Is there anything else you can do to make it better? Is there any other obstacle you haven’t thought of? What would be the first step you would take if you decided to change it? And so on, and so forth… After an hour, I saw that she was glad that she had someone who listened to her and that she had a change to talk about it.

However, I have to admit that active listening is sometimes tiring. It requires us to pay more attention and put more effort in the conversation than we usually do. It steals from the energy that we usually put into our problems. But it is only a matter of finding the right balance, isn’t it?

As for the summary of the blog on Emotional Intelligence, I feel that through writing about my perception of emotional intelligence, I learnt couple of important things.

First of all, I found out that meditation and mindfulness is not a cup of my tea. I tried, but it didn’t work. I learnt that every person has different ways of relaxing. In my case, running and exercising in overall is the way I should be maintaining the balance between work/studies and relax/life.

Secondly, I wanted to attend the workshop on Time-management. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to but at least, I read Getting Things Done by David Allen and successfully implemented a number of techniques which improve the time-management, such as to-do lists, ecalendars, eat the frog and 2 minute rule.

Lastly, I focused more on active listening. Having attended your workshop and 2-day workshop on coaching, I have a good base for improving such soft-skill. There indeed is a long way to go, but as it is said, the beginning is the most difficult part.

Thank you Samantha for following my blog. Again, I apologize for taking longer time for finishing the blog, but sometimes being reflective requires a bit deeper analysis. I hope I referred to all the things you expected me to and I look forward to writing the final blog for the Warwick Skills Portfolio Award.

All the best,
Natalia

: 01 Apr 2012 16:17 |  Tags: Actions Follow-Up P6 Portfolio Wspa |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem