12 Steps to an Emotionally Intelligent 2010

1. Commit to increasing your EQ. Before you could hope to make some improvements, you must make a sincere commitment.  Develop a plan and devote proper time and resources to making it happen.
2. Determine your strengths and areas for development. Learn about EI at www.eiconsortium.org.  Ask people in your circles to give you feedback in the various EI domains.  You can also take one of several assessments to get some objective, formal feedback and ideas for development.  Group assessments are offered through The Conrad Consulting Group, LLC.
3. Practice expressing your emotions. Being able to understand and calmly articulate how you are feeling is a valuable skill that many of us lack.  Improvement in this area alone could make all the difference in your relationships this year.
4. Volunteer. There is nothing like going out and putting your time and energy into a worthy cause.  Besides the rewarding feeling you get from helping people, volunteer activities also provide excellent opportunities to learn what life is like for others in your community.
5. Change your routine. Mix it up in 2010.  Life is always going to throw you curve balls, so practice creating some of your own so you’ll be better equipped to handle the unexpected ones.
6. Call an old friend whom you haven’t spoken to for years. Don’t let another year go by before you call that childhood friend, former teacher, former boss.  I know people who haven’t talked to immediate family members for years.  Life is too short for this.
7. Ensure that you get your news from multiple credible sources. Cable television and the internet have provided us unparalleled access to information, the problem is that so much of the information is bad and many of us only tune in the sources that reinforce our current belief structure.  That’s not the way to learn; in fact, it is the surest way to limit your knowledge about a given subject.
8. Mentor someone. Take the challenge to mentor a young person.  You will be glad you did.
9. Finally do that thing that you have been threatening to do for a long time. Be assertive - enroll in school to finish that degree, lose that nagging weight, read that book, or paint the house.  Most people have at least one thing that they have put off for far too long.  Tackle yours.
10. Adopt a hobby, or develop a talent. Do you play an instrument? Speak a second language? Practice martial arts? Draw?  If not, why not?
11. Exercise and eat healthy. If you read my newsletter on a regular basis, you know this is a biggie for me.  Make it a biggie for you in 2010.
12. Dance, sing, and laugh as often as you can. Despite its challenges, life is a song worth singing - so sing.  If this works for hospital patients, surely it can work for you.

Have a safe and prosperous 2010!