BY: Jasmine Ball
Ask anyone who’s mastered their career and they’ll tell you – having emotional intelligence and a positive emotional well-being are ranked pretty high up for career success. Emotional health is one’s ability to manage their emotions, thoughts, and feelings including having a sense of meaning and purpose— traits that can carry you far in the world of leadership, in life, and have impacts on your job performance, workplace effectiveness, and key relationships.
On the opposite spectrum, failure to properly improve your emotional health and wellbeing could lead to impacts on your physical and mental health, affecting your daily functioning such as your mood, thinking, and behavior, according to the CDC. For these reasons, it’s important to be more intentional about actively improving your emotional health and well-being so you can not only master your career, but more importantly master your life.
There are clear ways this can be done. Here is how to improve your emotional health this summer.
Practice labeling your emotions
Some people were never properly taught growing up how to identify their emotions or how to process them and express them in healthy ways. For example, if asked “How are you feeling right now at this very moment?”, are you able to identify and label the emotion you’re feeling? Pause and take a moment to really reflect on your answer. And no – “fine” or “good” don’t count for this exercise since they are not emotions.
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.”
In order to make improvements to your emotional well-being, the first step towards doing so is being able to label the emotion you’re feeling. Learning this skill can help you regulate your stress
levels and anxiety. If you need help on where to begin, start by looking up a list of names for emotions.
Actually feel your feelings
Once you are able to name your emotions, it’s duly important to give yourself the time to practice mindfulness by actually feeling what you are feeling.
This can be done in the moment or through journaling. Practice noticing the emotion that comes up, identifying what caused the emotion, and then give yourself the time, space, and grace to
breathe through whatever it is you’re feeling so that you can process it and in due time, let it go.
While on your emotional health journey, you may come to understand that certain emotions present themselves in order to point us towards taking a specific action. For example, if you feel anxiety about making a mistake at work, the emotion could be teaching you to slow down or brush up more on a particular skill. If you feel scared of drowning, thinking logically the fear may be pointing you towards ordering the proper gear or signing up for more swimming lessons. So feel your feelings and decipher any logical action steps that might present themselves to you.
Seek help and support
There’s an old saying that goes, “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it”. Once you start getting in the rhythm of identifying the myriad of emotions we experience on a day to day, it all comes down to finding healthy ways to express yourself so you can come up with creative solutions. Seeking help and support can empower you to work through disagreements, deal with uncertainty, and manage stress and change when you need it most. For some people, journaling about their true honest emotions and reframing limiting beliefs is enough. For others, talking it out with a pastor or therapist works or also leaning on a support system of friends, family, or social groups are additional healthy ways of receiving help to problems in useful ways.
Engage in relaxation techniques
Finally, when looking to make improvements on your overall emotional health and well-being, love yourself enough to prioritize engaging in relaxation techniques regularly. Some healthy ways
to decompress include reading, listening to music, exercising, spending time in nature, getting adequate rest/sleep, laughing, meditating, taking a warm bath, getting a massage, or spending
quality time with your loved ones, etc.
While it’s good to take care of business, never forget to take care of you!
Jasmine Ball, is the senior copy editor at Career Mastered Magazine, a wife, mom, author, award-winning journalist, and the founder of BTM Writing Services—a writing firm that
helps companies all over the world master their messaging and grow their business. With God at the center, Jasmine’s life mission is to use her gift to connect people to resources that will help them live more informed, inspired, and overall better lives.
