Preparing for the real world

This weeks class was all about social skills and emotional intelligence which is something crucial to have in the real world. Social skills is basically the way we communicate and interact with others, verbally or non-verbally through gestures, body language and personal appearance. Emotional intelligence on the other hand, is the capacity to control and express one's personal emotion while handling interpersonal relationships with common sense and being understanding of other's emotions.

These criteria's are vital in life whether it is at the workplace, at school or even at home. Social skills and emotional intelligence shows the character of a person, good or bad can be shown through body language even when the person did not say anything at all. Just like if someone is standing and talking to a person who's sitting, while that person is talking, they show strong gestures like pointing. Even though the intentions were good, just by the body language that person is perceived to be rude. So this is why I believe that it is important to always be aware of your actions and words as every move we make is constantly being judged by the public.

I remember when I was in my teens, I used to be an air head and was never aware of my social skills. I used to say things that I never thought it through which ended up hurting a lot of people around me without me knowing it. Thankfully, I was blessed with the best group of friends that despite hating my behaviour, they still cared for me as a friend and gave me a chance to change. I guess that was the moment I knew how a love-hate relationship felt. It was hard to take in at first, I felt all the pain and betrayal but if it wasn't for them being true friends and telling me about it, I would have still been that horrible person I was eight years ago. From that day on wards, I constantly remind myself to think before I act on anything and to put myself in other people's shoes for a change before judging others. That was when I learnt to be empathetic and judicious.

I think being emotionally intelligent isn't easy. Imagine having to face a client that you were on bad terms with. I personally experienced that before so I'm glad during that situation, I was the professional one. Even though the initial moment may be awkward, but I kept reminding myself to set aside all personal issues, be professional and just do my job as it is. In the end of the day, if someone else chooses to be unprofessional, we shouldn't stoop down to their level and be that kind of person. I think because I was used to handling haters and all that drama in high school, I was sort of trained to ignore the negativity.

This weeks class was an eye opener and it really made me think about the personal skills I should work on. I think the main problem for me is to cope with uncertainty. I'm so used to knowing everything I wanted to do and if you need me to do something, I would want to know what, when, where, why and how. Everything I do I had expectations on how it will turn out. I always expect too high, get stressed out about it and if it leads to disappointment, I feel down. Sometimes I even stress out too much and lash out on the people around me. That was the time I realize I hit rock bottom and had to do something about this problem.

So whenever I'm thrown into something different, I always try to think positive. Didn't do well? Learn from the mistakes and improve upon it. Scared to do something different from your usual? Treat it as a learning experience. Not liking the task you're given? Suck it up and just do it. It's easy to say as the initial moment I may not be accepting with open arms, but I keep reminding myself, "If not now then when?" While I'm still young, learn all I can with the time and energy I have, so that when I'm older I can make use of my brain to earn money.

In the end of the day, to succeed in life, attitude is important.