Peak Performance:
Success In College And Beyond

Chapter 2

Expand Your Emotional Intelligence

Chapter Objectives

• Describe emotional intelligence and the key personal qualities

• Explain the importance of good character, including integrity, civility, and ethics

• Display responsibility, self-management, and self-control

• Develop self-esteem and confidence

Chapter Objectives

• Incorporate a positive attitude and motivation

• Use goal setting as a motivational tool

• List the benefits of a higher education

• Overcome the obstacles to staying positive and motivated

Emotional Intelligence (E.Q)

• High IQ is a poor predictor of success in life.

• Goleman – IQ contributes at most 20% of the factors leading to success in life.

• The other 80% comes from “emotional intelligence.”

Gardner’s description

• 1. Leadership skills

• 2. The ability to make friends and nurture relationships.

• 3. The ability to resolve conflicts.

• 4. Emotional perceptiveness

Goleman’s categories

• 1. Self-awareness – knowing your own emotions, self-insight and knowing your own needs.

• 2. Managing your emotions – mastering stress, controlling anger overcoming depression and anxiety etc.

• 3. Self-motivation – perseverance, delay of gratification, staying focused on tasks.

• 4. Perceptiveness – recognizing the emotions of others and also the effect of your behavior on others, EMPATHY, recognizing nonverbal cues.

• 5. Handling relationships – listening skills, conversational skills, conflict resolution, appropriate assertiveness.

Success Principle 2

Focus on CHARACTER, not just skills.

Emotional Intelligence And Maturity

• Emotional Intelligence

• Maturity

– Self-awareness—tuning in to yourself

– Empathy—tuning in to others

– Change—tuning in to results

Character First: Integrity, Civility, And Ethics

• Character

• Integrity

• Civility

• Empathy

• Ethics

Responsibility

I am responsible for…

• Forming positive habits

• Assessing my skills

• My feelings and actions

• Keeping my agreements

• Paying back student loans

• Setting goals

• My decisions and choices

Responsibility

• Learning study and job skills

• Managing time and stress

• Personal and professional relationships

• Major and career planning

• Managing money

• Knowing what resources are available

• My health and energy

Self-Control

• Calm down

• Clarify and define

• Listen with empathy and

respect

• Use “I” statements

• Focus on one problem

• Focus on win-win

solutions

• Reward positive

behavior

Listening Skills

• Intentions that promote good listening:

• To Understand Someone

• To Enjoy Someone

• To Learn Something

• To Give Help or Solace

Pseudolistening

This occurs when some other intention is being satisfied:

• Pretending to listen to make people think you are interested in them so you will be liked.

• Being vigilant for signs of potential rejection.

• Listening for one thing and ignoring others.

4. Focusing on your rebuttal or the next thing you want to say.

5. Pretending to listen so someone will listen to you.

6. Listening to uncover vulnerabilities to gain an advantage.

7. Looking for weak points in the speaker’s reasoning so you can come out on top.

8. Checking only to see how the speaker is reacting to make sure you produce the desired effect.

9. Half-listening because that is what a nice person should do.

10. Pretending to listen to be polite.

Blocks to Effective Listening

• Judging – defining things as good or bad.

• Mind Reading – your assumptions

• Stereotyping – your widespread generalizations

• Interrupting – Interrupts flow

• Comparing – listening to make comparisons

• Advising – finding advice for the speaker

• Rehearsing – reviewing what to say next

• Stage-Hogging – listen to change focus back to yourself

• Filtering – listening to what you want to hear and ignoring the rest

• Dueling – arguing for the sake of arguing

• Derailing – distracting to never reach a conclusion

• Daydreaming – being caught up in your own fantasies

• Placating – overinvestment in being nice and ignoring your own feelings

• Hidden Agendas – an unacknowledged goal in the conversation

• Overreacting – becoming overemotional about a particular word or statement that offends one

Building Blocks of Effective Listening

• ACTIVE LISTENING

– Paraphrasing – stating in your own words what someone has just said

• It sounds like you are saying…

• As I understand you…

• What I hear you saying is…

• From your point of view…

• Clarifying – asking questions to help you understand the speaker’s message

I’m confused, could you explain that further?

Let me be sure I understand you…

Could you repeat that?

What is that supposed to mean? Idiot!!

• Feedback – sharing your reactions to what you heard. It should be:

1. Immediate

2. Honest

3. Supportive

Ex. “ I get the feeling you are not telling everything here.” instead of, “You’re lying.” or “You’re holding out on me.”

Empathic Listening

• Listening not just to the words, but trying to understand what the other person is feeling and thinking. Getting inside the other person’s frame of reference.

• Paraphrasing the speaker’s feelings, attitudes and emotions.

• Empathic listening often communicates that you value the other person and their experience.

– I sense you are feeling…

– You feel…

– You seem…

• Good listeners listen with their eyes as well as their ears, paying attention to non-verbal communication as well as verbal. When non-verbals do not match verbal meaning we get incongruent communication and double messages.

The Win-Win Frame

• Finding a solution that meets the needs of everyone involved, going beyond mere compromise to find solutions that allow everyone to meet their goals.

• Research (prisoner’s dilemma) clearly shows cooperation leads to greater success than does win-lose competition.

Outcomes

• Win-Lose or Lose-Win

• Lose-Lose

• Win-Win or no deal

Barriers to Win-Win

• People don’t know about that method

• Anger or resentment

• Require cooperation of the other person

• Effective people look for win-win situations and solutions.

Attitudes for Win-Win

• Trust through the emotional bank account

• Behaviors that build trust and make positive contributions to the emotional bank account

– Understand the Individual

– Attend to the little things

– Keep Your Commitments

– Clarify Your Expectations

– Show Personal Integrity

– Apologize Sincerely When you are Wrong

• Giving Up Being Right

• Effective people would rather be happy than right.

• If involved in an interpersonal struggle ask yourself, “Would I rather be right or happy?”

• Not taking the “right” position doesn’t mean you are wrong!

• Stepping Into the Shoes of The Other

–Try to see the world through the eyes of the other person

Self-Esteem And Confidence

Confidence can develop from…

• Focusing on your strengths and positive qualities

• Learning to be resilient and bouncing back after disappointments and setbacks

• Using affirmations and visualizations to replace negative thought and images

• Taking responsibility for your life instead of blaming others

• Learning skills and competencies

• Focusing on giving, not receiving, and make others feel valued and appreciated

• Creating a support system by surrounding yourself with confident and kind people

Self-Concept

• Physical

– Body, eyes, nose, hair, skin

• Social

– Role as friend, son/daughter, sister/brother, mom/dad, student/teacher

• Personal

– Innermost thoughts and experiences

Self-esteem
One’s overall perception of one’s worth
as a person; it is the
“evaluative component of the self-concept”
(Weiten & Lloyd, 2000, p. 138)

Often correlated with positive behaviors…but not always!

Affects one’s efforts, persistence, etc.

Self-Esteem

• Over-all evaluation of ourselves

• High self-esteem increases happiness and provides a sense of security

• Self-efficacy: expectation of being capable of achieving goals in many kinds of situations

• Low self-esteem results in low expectations, reduced effort, elevated anxiety and poor performance

Breaking Self-Esteem
Cycle of Failure

• Accept yourself

• Understand that everyone has value and self-worth

• Distinguish the different parts of who you are

• Don’t rely on praise from others

• Building self-esteem is a lifelong undertaking

Cycle of Failure

Cycle of Success

• Parental behavior

– More expressions of affection during childhood

– Greater parental interest in child’s activities

– More accepting of their children

– Sound, consistent discipline

• Parents’ own self-esteem

– Relatively high

• What do you think self-worth should be based on?

• Nothing – it is your right, it should be based on recognition that your worth is independent of your achievements, just because you are a unique human being.

A Positive Attitude And Personal Motivation

• Higher productivity

• An openness to learning at school and on the job

• School and job satisfaction

• Creativity in solving problems and finding solutions

A Positive Attitude And Personal Motivation

• The ability to work with diverse groups of people

• Enthusiasm and a “can do” outlook

• Confidence and higher self-esteem

• The ability to channel stress and increase energy

• A sense of

purpose and

direction

A Positive Attitude And Personal Motivation

People who have a negative attitude may…

• Feel that they are victims and are helpless to make a change

• Focus on the worst that can happen in a situation

• Blame external circumstances for their attitudes

• Focus on the negative in people and situations

• Look at adversity as something that will last forever

• Be angry and blame other people

How Needs And Desires Influence Attitudes And Motivation

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The Motivation Cycle

• Beliefs and self-esteem

• Self-talk and imagery

• Physical reaction

• Behavior

Motivational Dynamics

• Primary Appraisal – Your initial assessment, is the goal irrelevant, relevant not threatening (you are confident), or stressful (you are not confident).

• Secondary Appraisal - evaluation of your skills and coping resources and options for dealing with the task.

• Sensory Input----Perceptual Interpretation----Cognitive Elaboration----- Self-Talk

• Inner Emotional Reaction-----Autonomic Nervous System Response-----

• Further Cognitive elaboration (worry, fearful thoughts and fantasies,

• catastrophic expectations ) OR Effective

• Problem Solving and Coping Strategies (reasoned and proportional reaction and response, emotional stabilization and behavior control)----re-engagement with external events.

Motivational Strategies

• Act as if you were motivated (fake it ‘til you make it). Fordyce study:

• Levels of well- being could be increased if people learned to imitate the behaviors of happy people:

• Keeping busy

• Being well organized

• Spending more time socializing (acting like extraverts)

• Maintaining an optimistic outlook

• Use affirmations

• Use visualization

• Use goals as motivational tools

• Understand expectations

Motivational Strategies

• Study in teams

• Stay physically and mentally healthy

• Learn to reframe - Altering your frame of reference about a situation by changing your attitude, expectations, beliefs, cognitions, perspectives, or emotions.

• Reward yourself

• Make learning relevant

The Benefits Of Higher Education

• Encourages critical thinking

• Is a smart financial investment

• Prepares you for life on the job

Overcome Obstacles

• Don’t get discouraged

• Create positive mind shifts