All of the research that tries to measure and evaluate confidence and productivity tends to point to one thing – emotional intelligence. When science has gone out to try and understand why some people are more confident, productive and successful than others, it comes up with emotional intelligence; the ability to have self control and to be self directed. Not everyone does it yet everyone is capable of it. In fact, the University of Pennsylvania went out and asked over two million people to rank a list of 24 different skills in the order in which they feel they are the strongest in. Self control? Well, that always came in last.
It seems all a matter of mindset and execution. Here are just a few ways that highly confident and productive people get, and stay, that way.
- The first thing that the confident and successful do is that they focus on answers and solutions. Too many people stand around wringing their hands over problems. Too many focus on the negatives. Staying focused on the negative, constantly looking for problems rather than solutions, sucks your creative energy from you like nothing else.
- The next things that they always tend to is that they eat and sleep. Seems self evident? Not so much. The non-confident, the non-productive, the non-successful, rarely pay attention to their diets and about getting enough sleep so as to be at their best. Grouped in with this is the importance of both exercise and a meditation practice. Both exercise and meditation help to release certain chemicals that focus the mind and enable self control.
- They are gentle with themselves and know that there is no such thing as perfection. Things are already perfect. They know that their journey is just that; a journey. They are not so brutal with their self judgement and they easily forgive themselves. They know that there will be failures along the road to success. They expect it, learn from it, forgive themselves, and then move on to the next challenge.
- They stay focused on the positive aspect of things, they go with the flow and they have learned how to say “no”. They know that negative focus only brings further negative results. They remain flexible because they know that the only thing that ever changes is change. They don’t force reality to be what they want it to be. They take the current reality for what it is, adapt to it, and move ahead. Finally,they are not people pleasers. They say “no” when the feel it may put them in an energy draining situation. Because of this, they never over extend themselves. Saying “no” keeps them in control. It allows them to focus on what is important to them at any given time.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
