The COVID-19 situation is busy freaking everyone out. People are doing panic buying and worried about the future of the economy, their social wellbeing, their jobs, their kids etc. Suddenly work stress is now combined with an extraordinary different type of stress not everyone is capable of handling. Our mental health, staying positive, self-motivated and remaining proactive suddenly is a huge task. It’s time to use EQ skills to lower your stress levels. Here’s how:
1. Know yourself and be aware of others.
What triggers your stress levels? What makes you angry, agitated and moody? Identify your emotions and learn what makes you tick. Raise your EQ levels by learning self-regulation and self-management and don’t allow your emotions of how you experience anger and conflict to drive your actions. It is important for leaders to realise that self-growth will help conquer most things. Then put yourself in other people’s shoes and realise that the emotions you go through they go through too. Then treat them like you would like to be treated.
2. Identify your strengths.
Leaders concentrate on their strengths and develop them even more. They don’t let their weakness come between them and success. Multi-tasking can take its toll, especially if you battle with things you are not good at. Learn to ask for help. Identify your strengths and trust and delegate to people whose strengths are your weaknesses.
3. Realise that everyone is human.
Failure and disappointment are inevitable in every human’s life. It is how you cope with it. In life 90% of things that happen to you are not about what happened or how it happened, but about how you bounce back or deal with it. Grant yourself and other’s the opportunity and space to fail. If you don’t fail or make mistakes, you hamper your learning process.
4. Respond positively rather than reacting negatively.
Listen and communicate effectively with people. Cultivate active listening skills and realise that there are quite a few opinions and different viewpoints out there. Take other’s emotions and viewpoints into consideration when responding to them. Through doing this, you will make informed and well thought through decisions. A positive response is much more constructive than a negative reaction.
5. Learn from feedback and past experiences.
There is always room for learning and leaders know that. Welcome positive critique and learn from past experiences. Don’t let people’s opinion get you down but look for the constructive criticism and use it to grow.