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Emotional Intelligence Reflection Paper

Over the past month throughout our Comprehensive Leadership Program class, ‘The

Practice of Leadership,’ we have covered a wide variety of topics and different ideas which may

be presented with us again in our near future. These topics and ideas have been presented to us in

an impactful and demonstrative way through different modules, learning exercises, and course

readings. The last module which we have endured as a class has been Emotional Intelligence, or

EQ for short. In our EQ section, we all partook in an EQ test to help us determine how each one

of us individually reacts under stress and conflict situations, typically in our work and school

environments. After we took this test, we spent the four weeks trying to recreate and better the

skills which we learned about ourselves on our EQ exams. Throughout this reflection and work

stage, there have been many takeaways and lessons I have learned about myself, as well as how I

react in certain stressful and conflicting situations.

Firstly, one of our main assignments during this unit was after we had gotten our test

results back, was to take in these results, and understand them in order to try and better them. We

did just that by using our EQ fitness handbook in order to work on activities and exercises that

will help us improve our lower scores, as well as sharpening some of the higher scored results

which we received. To take a deeper look into my individual scores, and the activities I chose to

try and better the lower scores I recieved, I chose four specific exercises: practicing self care,

practice listening, commiting to laughter and practicing using a half smile. My reasoning behind

choosing these four activities was because I scored lower on these sections on the test, and I

know that in times of my life not during stress and conflict, I can work on these emotions.
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To begin with practicing self care, I chose to work on this exercise because on the EQ

test, my access to a wide range of feelings was fit, but barely fit. I had just escaped the somewhat

fit category, and that tells me that I need to work on this category. I can see these results in my

life outside of stress and conflict through the ways that I spend a lot more time worrying and

tending to other people's needs, before I take a step to look back and think about how I am doing.

I think we all do this, but especially in stressful times of college, I tend to make sure my friends

are doing ok or asking them, “What can I do?” in certain situations where I may not even be

involved. This ties into the aspect of self care because sometimes stepping back and looking onto

things from a greater lens is the resolution a situation needs sometimes. In this specific activity, I

practiced self care by walking with my family, bringing my old guitar out of my closet and

playing it with my sister, as well as spending time watching old family movies. Sometimes,

taking a step back in life and recognizing the bigger picture is all we need to do, and this practice

of self care helped me realize exactly that.

The next exercise which I participated in was practicing listening. The practicing

listening activity stems from the overarching concept of developing empathy accuracy and this

was a category which I need to work on. This means that my ability to read what people are

thinking, feeling, or wanting when they are challenging me or making demands on me is limited.

The reason I chose to participate in this activity is because of how important the skill of listening

is in life. Whether it be in the workplace or at school, or even sitting at home on your own couch,

listening is such a key component of our lives and our ability to talk to people, be relational to

people, as well as expressing our thoughts and feelings in times of conflict. In my own life, I feel

like I am always trying to chime in and give my two cents on certain situations where I honestly

should have nothing to say at all. Over the past few days, taking a step back on things and
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listening more than speaking up in conversations has shown to be beneficial in some regards. I

think listening more than speaking gives me the ability to form my own thoughts and opinions

more wholly, which is a good thing. Regardless of being told to keep quiet, sometimes listening

to the things in life (not always in conversation) can be beneficial. Go outside and listen to the

birds chirp, or the squirrels squeak. Hear the many different types of car engines on the road.

Listening in our world is so soothing to the mind and a great way to clear cloudy headspace.

Going on walks around my neighborhood and trying this practice has been very beneficial.

The last two exercises which I practiced were a combination of commiting to laughter

and practicing a half smile. I chose both because I really liked both of them and it was too hard

to choose, so I thought combining them would create a greater impact on me overall. The reason

for choosing both of these activities is because in this specific section, the goal of the activities

are to effectively manage yourself in relationships - self regulation. This concept is so important

because being able to hold up your end of the bargain and show up for others when it is crucial is

so important. However, in working on these activities, I felt so responsible for my own actions

because it is my job and responsibility to control my laughing and my smiling. I notice in my life

I normally do not have a smile on my face, which may make me seem standoffish. I have really

been trying in my life to flash at least a half smile because having more of a smile than a frown

on your face goes such a long way. Smiling more honestly increased my overall mood so much

and it's important that I keep trying to implement this into my life, even when the EQ unit is

over. Practicing laughing was such an important activity to participate in as well because during

times like these, it is easy to look at the negative things in life more than the positive. Practicing

laughing brought me so much joy because laughing is so fun. Some of the fondest childhood

memories I have was when my sister and I would be laughing so hard, our ribs hurt. Laughing so
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hard that our mom thought we were crying. Both of these activities worked hand in hand in

helping me gain a greater sense of self trust, which is so important. In order to be able to have

impactful trust with others, you need to be able to trust in yourself first.

As I mentioned in my last paragraph, I had a few sections which I scored lower on so I

used the exercises in the EQ fitness handbook in order to better understand why I might have

scored lower, as well as trying to bring those higher. On the other hand, there were a few

sections in particular which I scored higher on that I thought I would have. One section which

stood out in particular was my ability to balance my thoughts, wants and feelings effectively.

This was my highest scoring section with an overall score of 99.6 and my individual scores were

32.96% thoughts, 33.48% wants, and 33.56% feelings. An ideal representation in this section

should be 33, 33, 33, meaning you take in your thoughts, wants, and feelings evenly when trying

to make a tough decision. This even distribution means that I have a good orientation about the

decisions which I choose to make. The other aspect of my EQ test results which I overachieved

was my self other orientation. On this part of the test, my orientation was 49.44% self, 50.56%

others. The ideal distribution for this graph is a 50/50 split, but I am happy overall with this

aspect. A 50/50 split is ideal because it means that you are able to easily and quickly focus on

both myself and other people in interpersonal exchanges. I am thinking about myself and my

being just about the same rate as I am doing towards my counterpart. This is an important scale

to be on because this also ties into the conversation about trust and being relational with others.

In conclusion, there are so many valuable lessons and takeaways which I have gained

from the EQ module. I think back to our class where we danced for half with Judy and had a

deep talk about our individual EQ results. In that class, I learned so much about being free of
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mental restraints and letting loose. Expressive dance regarding emotions was much more

powerful than I ever could have thought it would have been. Honestly, this module has stuck out

to me as my favorite throughout all of the activities and exercises we have done so far in CLP.

Learning these valuable lessons which we can tie so directly to every aspect of our lives is hard

to come by, and the EQ profile did just that. I truly think this test should be more open for

everyone to take because you learn so much about yourself during this test.