Not sure about you but I have felt like I am on a roller-coast ride with about a 1m visibility in front of me not quite sure which direction I am heading in next. It made me start thinking about the final installment of this series of EQ for every day which is Give Yourself.
Just a little recap of what we have chatted about previously around Emotional Intelligence. We first explored Know Yourself which is clearly seeing what you feel and do. Knowing your strengths and challenges, you know what you are doing, what you want, and what to change.
Then we looked into the second part of this series which is Choose Yourself and that was looking at doing what you mean to do. Instead of reacting on autopilot, you know how to take action, how to influence yourself and others, and how to put these into action.
The final part is Give Yourself which is your WHY. When you Give Yourself you are clear and full of energy so you stay focused on why to respond a certain way, why to move in a new direction, and why others should come on board.
Feeling a little confused or not clear on the direction in life made me think that perhaps I need to tap into my Give Yourself pursuit and see what is missing. There are always high emotions over the festive season. So many emotions floating around and especially during this very strange period we are all living in I seem to think everything has heightened emotions.
So Give Yourself is about tapping into empathy which is recognizing and appropriately responding to others and your own emotions. There’s always more to the story. When people do or say something annoying, get curious: What’s really going on here? I definitely think I needed more of this over the festive season thinking back now to certain things.
Empathy is key to understanding others and forming enduring and trusting relationships. It ensures you take other people into account in your decision-making and gives them a rock-solid assurance that you are on the same team.
The second part of Give Yourself is really trying to understand what your contribution is to this world. Six Second Emotional Intelligence Network calls this your noble goal. What legacy do you want to leave behind, what impact do you want to make on the world and the people around you? By connecting to your noble goal you are focused outwardly on how you contribute to people and the world around you.
When you are clear about your noble goal, you feel compelled to pay fierce attention to your daily choices to ensure that you are not undermining your life purpose.
Your choices matter. Your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions influence one another….. And that changes the world around you. What’s the effect you want to have? If you have a clear picture of where you want to go, you’ll make much more effective decisions.
So how do we best practice empathy and pursing our noble goal so we are living our purpose? Here are 10 tips for living a more meaningful life:
- Get to the heart of it – At the end of the day, why are you here? How are you going to use your gifts and talents to make the world a better place?
- Imagine yourself at your own funeral – Write your own funeral speech. What is it that you want to be remembered for? What would really have meaning for you?
- Articulate a clear, concise noble goal – Something you refer back to as you make decisions big and small, not too long or too short.
- Refer back to your noble goal – Once you have it, use it! It’s not something that you should only refer back to when making big decisions. Even the most mundane tasks are opportunities for bringing the future you want into the present.
- Step back 5, 10 years – If you check in with your noble goal and you still feel stuck, here’s another tip: focus on a longer timeline. In a year, or 5 years or even 10 years, how will you look back on the decision you’re making? Or the stress you feel now?
- Keep asking, “Why?” – When you ask yourself why, you naturally connect your current decision to the bigger picture. You connect it to your goal, what you really want. To gain a greater understanding of “why” watch this TED talk by Simon Sinek: https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action
- More question marks, fewer periods – to connect with others, empathy is indispensable. The ability to imaginatively put yourself in someone else’s shoes is the heart of connecting with them
- Become a master listener. A prerequisite for empathy is listening. Listening to the words someone says is a good first step, but master listeners involve more senses than that: deep listening is about paying attention to nonverbal cues: a person’s posture, body language, tone, inflection
- Go deeper and deeper. Do you want deeper connections? I know I do. Sometimes small talk is great, but often I want to go deeper, and really get to know someone.
- Practice loving-kindness meditation. Meditation has been to shown to increase empathy, especially a type known as loving-kindness meditation. I highly recommend it.
So I suppose the questions still stand as to how one formulates their noble goal. Here are a few pointers to start with your noble goal. I do believe it is a work in progress that should be tested out on not only our big decisions but on the mundane tasks too. This is to ensure the noble goal we have formulated really shows up in all aspects of our life.
You normally start with a verb, “To blank…” and then a noun. Like, “To inspire compassionate wisdom,” or “To support myself and others to live in truth.” Then tweak it, change it a little, expand its vision, change a word or two.
To be a noble goal, make sure it checks off all 5 of these:
1. Not complete in your lifetime – It is enduring and inspiring, something beyond the daily struggle. This helps you maintain a long-term focus so you can avoid the confusion of short-term thinking.
2. Pointed outward – While you will benefit, the focus is on others. This helps you maintain an expansive vision.
3. Integrates different domains – It encompasses all dimensions of your life; serving your noble goal in one domain (such as work) supports you in all others (such as family).
4. Gets you out of bed – It motivates and inspires you at a deep level; this helps you to have the energy when the going gets tough.
5. No one made less – No one has to be “less than” or “wrong” for you to pursue your Noble Goal; this helps you stay out of ego and power struggle.
I would love for you to share your noble goal with me. So share this article and your noble goal on my Facebook page: candicekinglifecoach. It would be really amazing to see the legacy you want to leave behind.
Thank you for being a part of this EQ journey with me. I have felt honoured to share my knowledge on emotional intelligence as I really do believe there is power is understanding our emotions on a deeper level so we can really show up authentically in everything we do.