"Emotional Intelligence the Easy Way" the EI book for you!

"Your Emotional Intelligence Coach" says
"Manage Your Focus and You Manage Your Emotions"
Self-Confidence Conquers Fear with the Right EI Skills Training and Mindset Shift
By Crystal Jonas, "Your Emotional Intelligence Coach"
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Self-Confidence improves when you build EI Skills

If fear is stopping you from living the life you were meant to live, you're in for good news.  You can build your emotional intelligence EI skills and learn to direct your thoughts and emotions in ways that empower you.

Manage Your Emotions with Awareness

As an emotional intelligence coach with clients all over the country, one of the first lessons I help my clients with this this: "Focus + Feeling = Fact"

Your focus and feelings will determine where your attention goes.  How you feel about what you're thinking about will determine whether you ACT or not.

Analyzing fear diffuses its power.
You've heard of "analysis paralysis." That's when you mull over something, study it, ask the opinion of your friends, family, strangers in the coffee shop, to the point where you're essentially powerless to take action because you're over-thinking the situation.

It's not a good place to be, and generally a real problem for people who tend to be perfectionists, or afraid of making a mistake, or afraid of failure, or even success. I generally recommend that you look out for "analysis paralysis" and be ready to overcome it.

As is so often the case, though, there is an exception to the general rule of "avoid overanalyzing."  When it comes to fear, try it.

EI Skills allow you to be analytical about what you fear

Use your emotional intelligence skills to be objective about what you fear. Stare right at fear; put it under microscopic scrutiny and wallow in the mud with it.  Look at it from all different angles, take it apart, and pin point exactly where the "fear" in the situation lies.

Let's give this exercise a go right now looking at the most common fear: Public Speaking.  It's something most people fear more than death.  Odd, when you think about it, isn't it?  "Speak to the Junior League?  No thanks, I'd rather be run over by a Mac truck."

Let the analyzing begin. What exactly are people afraid of about speaking?  Technically, unless you have the unfortunate habit of talking to yourself when others are around, all speaking is public speaking. You talk, someone hears, public speaking. 

You could, of course, make the argument that speaking on the phone isn't public speaking. So let's look at that for a moment. Would you be comfortable speaking on the phone if more than one person were listening in?  How about 3? 5? 11? Is there a magic number at which point talking over the phone would give you butterflies?  If so, what would  that number be, exactly?

When you're imagining yourself speaking in public, where does the fear lie?  You don't really think you'll suddenly develop a speech impediment that you've never had before, do you?  Or your perfectly good knees will suddenly give out, and you'll fall down, right? 

Of course not. You know intellectually that won't happen.  You could make a mistake though, right?  It's possible you could misspeak, or lose your place.  News for you.  It happens to professional speakers all the time, and it's no big deal.  Have you ever listened to a speaker that did not ONCE pause to collect her thoughts, or accidentally mispronounce a word?  What did you do?  Bet you thought nothing of it.  Bet it probably slipped right off your radar screen, and you didn't even think about it afterwards.

When you're thinking about what you fear, it may even serve you to think of the absolute worse case scenario. Make it outrageous, and please, keep it very melodramatic, as though you were watching a play. Crucial here to stay "outside" of the situation, don't actually generate any negative emotion.  Pretend it's happening "out there".

So there you are, watching yourself speak in public (deep breath, please). And you mispronounce a word.  See then, you're easily correcting the word. If it's a truly funny mistake, laugh at it with the audience. Can you see how self-confident you are? 

How about this one, you lose your place.  How do you handle that? Simple, pauses are extremely effective for your audience, they need time to process information. You pause, you glance at your notes, you resume.  Play it all out in detail. 

Can you think of something truly outrageous that you'd be afraid might happen?  What is it?  What would you do?  In each situation, toss around ideas for yourself so you'll know how to handle the great feared circumstance.

Self-Confidence increases with mental rehearsal

Expand this skill to other endeavors.  Like to ask for a raise, but are afraid?  What could happen?  How would you handle it?  Again, look at each detail you think you're afraid of, play it out on stage first, find your response, see yourself calmly handling it.

And now, do it. Whatever that thing you fear is, you know deep down, don't you, that you really can handle it. That it's not really a big deal at all, just some unknown that you can overcome because your intelligence and ability to figure out a solution is much, much bigger than your fear.

When you are old, and wearing purple, won't you be tickled with yourself that when you were able, you took risks, that there were times when you were afraid and you took the step, and did it anyway?  And won't your experience enrich not only your own life, but be a great example for some other young woman who wants to do something, but is, right now,  a little afraid.

© Crystal Jonas, "Your Emotional Intelligence Coach"