There are a million things that contribute to your success: your attitude, your people skills, and your ability to lead, listen, and take responsibility, to name a few.
But an important one many don’t know about is the ability to manage emotions and remain calm under pressure, says Travis Bradberry, president at TalentSmart and coauthor of “Emotional Intelligence 2.0,” in a LinkedIn post.
In a more recent follow-up post, Bradberry says that managing your emotions is as much about what you don’t do as it is about what you do.
He sifted through data from his company, TalentSmart — which tested more than a million people and found that the “upper echelons of top performance are filled with people who are high in emotional intelligence” — to uncover the kinds of things that successful do and don’t do to keep themselves calm, content, and in control.
He found nine behaviours they consciously avoid. Here are a few of our favorites:
1. They don’t live in the past.
“Emotionally intelligent people know that success lies in their ability to rise in the face of failure, and they can’t do this when they’re living in the past,” he says. “Anything worth achieving is going to require you to take some risks, and you can’t allow [past failures] to stop you from believing in your ability to succeed.”
When you live in the past, that is what happens — and it’s nearly impossible to move forward.
2. They don’t dwell on problems or hold grudges.
Bradberry says your emotional state is determined by where you focus your attention. “When you fixate on the problems that you’re facing, you create and prolong negative emotions and stress, which hinders performance. When you focus on actions to better yourself and your circumstances, you create a sense of personal efficacy that produces positive emotions and improves performance.”
People with high emotional intelligence focus on solutions, he says. And they rarely hold a grudge.
Why?
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