Final EI and EI Report
1: EI Survey
The results draw the following inferences. First, the rise in the first aspect shows that I achieved the need to concentrate on the present emotions to improve my self-awareness and mindfulness skills. Second, the drop in self-regulation means that it would take longer for the breathing exercises to work as a way of controlling my negative emotions and avoiding confrontation.
Third, my facilitation of emotion in others implied that I have been slow in learning to think about others and their perspectives. This ability would make me understand how to react in the event of an emotional outburst. Lastly, before this experiment, I was characteristically uncomfortable in social situations. However, the push towards control management helped me utilize some of the social skills that would develop my awareness of emotions in others.
Overall, I agree with these new scores. The reason is that they show a slight improvement compared to the old results. On average, the old scores have values ranging from 70-130. These values meant that I needed to, above all, improve my awareness of emotions in others. Contrarily, the new scores range between 90 and 130. These scores come with an improvement in the last aspect. This trade-off in scores leads to an improved range that contains figures showing competence and expertise across all EI aspects.
Skill and Behavior
The skill I chose is conflict management. I chose this skill to help improve my attitude and reaction when dealing with conflict. The new behavior I practiced was breathing exercises. A mastery of this behavior would help me keep calm during a conflict.
In my first journal entry, I found it hard adapting to journaling based on my lack of experience and busy scheduling. However, I tried my best to complete the entry in the hope that it could get better with time. My coach’s great skills as an advisor played a vital role in making changes towards this new skills. Contrarily, I realized that the breathing exercises would play a great role in helping control my temper. In my second journal, I noted that I have made an improvement in my breathing exercises from three to five times a week. The improvement was of great assistance given the fact that I had a busy schedule between two jobs and school.
The third and fourth journals had me detail the improvements I made concerning teamwork and relationships. The greatest advancement came when I learned the importance of developing a positive relationship with supervisors and colleagues. Also, my coach’s relationship woes taught me about the value of patience and learning when to let go of unhealthy relationships. Notably, however, there was no major improvement in behavior as I had made it a routine to do my exercises, attend school, and go to my two jobs.
Moreover, I based journal five entries on the search of self-control following my experiences with the supervisor. The thought of working on a fixed schedule under tight shifts left me frustrated. I would later learn to control my emotions upon an extensive discussion with my coach as well as a series of breathing exercises. My sixth journal details similar results concerning the tight schedules and emotional outbursts. The breathing exercises would no longer work for me, so I avoided unnecessary interactions to help control my emotions. Nonetheless, I was glad that the week came to an end without any major occurrence.
In week eight, I discovered that the breathing exercise had become an important part of my life. Also, I read and shared a blog post that offered ten pointers on how people go through successful changes in life. By my ninth and eighth week, I could relax and control myself. I had developed the skills of getting myself through challenging situations such as help, understand, and apologize to customers. However, there are numerous instances where I could pretend to care just to let go of frustrations. The one thing I worried about was the due date for final journal entry submission.
Components of EI Development
The three components of my EI development include conflict management, journaling, as well as breathing exercises and coaching. Conflict management meant that I learn how to control my emotions in the most effective way possible. It would be part of an interpersonal improvement plan that would allow me to relate well in team environments both at work and school. I had the following difficulties and successes in this practice behavior. First, the biggest difficulty was having to control my frustration especially given the strenuous work schedule. I also found it hard to achieve the need for utter concentration when striving to modify behavior. I admit that I have a long way to go for complete success in conflict management.
Contrarily, I learned that appropriate conflict management would help in building interpersonal skills for personal and professional development. I also learned that with determination comes success. Ultimately, I was able to build a healthy relationship with myself, the supervisors, my coach, and colleagues. Each and every activity played a vital role in enhancing my skill development. For instance, the breathing exercises served as emotion regulars in times of need. Second, the regular talks with the coach would get me back on track whenever I felt frustrated with my tight schedules. Finally, the workplace environment acted as the source of the constant challenge required to test my adaptability strength.
Journaling meant that I had to keep a constant account of my progress through journal entries. The primary difficulty I experienced is learning to keep up with weekly journal scores. There are times I could be so busy that I forgot to submit my journals. There was also instances when I lacked content for my subsequent journals. Such situations happened in weeks without major improvements on skill development and exercising. However, my major success happened when I learned to make my entries without much assistance. I also developed a habit of tracking my progress from the first week to the last one. I feel that the idea of journaling helped track my skill development by documenting my progress as well identifying areas that required improvement.
Furthermore, I kept working on my breathing exercises twice to three times every week. The major difficulty I experienced was there are times I could barely concentrate on my breath. I found myself drifting to other things in the process such as reflecting on the day’s events. However, time saw me relaxed and comfortable enough to go through with the exercises. Breathing exercises are fundamental for improving and managing one’s stress. I found them quite helpful every time I experienced physical and psychological pain. Such instances were important as trackers of my path to achieving control management.
Finally, I experienced difficulties in finding adequate time to spend with the coach. She and I were sometimes too busy for each other. However, we could often find a time and go over developments on a weekly basis. I also found her extremely helpful in explaining the importance of teamwork and relationships in one’s skill development path. Her methods of guidance were appropriate in offering the required encouragement especially during days I felt that I could give up on the exercise. She was the guide I required to provide a sense of direction to ultimate goal achievement in skill development.
3 Teamwork, Relationships and Ethics
Relationship
I learned that relationships were all about sacrificing and looking out for the other party. People should understand their needs and wants within a relationship of any kind. An understanding of my personal physical and emotional needs of a relationship would be important because it determines the nature and successfulness of the whole arrangement. That way, I can always know when to walk out of unhealthy and unsatisfactory relationships. For example, my coach broke up with her boyfriend because she found out he was not the right partner. Her realization and decision came only after careful deliberations on the nature of their relationship.
Teamwork
Teamwork helps bring better results. Teamwork in the workplace provides employees and their managers to familiarize with each other and organizational processes. Also, there are numerous ways in which learning to function in a teamwork environment is vital to the success of every employee. People use teams to encourage productiveness based on their ease of brainstorming, choosing, and implementing ideas. For example, the weeks preceding week five saw me struggle to adapt to my new work environment. I started off as a lone worker who would follow the cash supervisor around for tips on successful task performance. However, I worked towards developing a positive relationship with my colleagues. This move saw me develop the confidence and skills required to run the cash register.
Ethics
I can solve the ethical issue of the environmental plastic bag policy based on the following decision-making framework. I had an ethical issue with returning customers concerning the plastic bag policy. This policy directed that we charge for every extra bag requested on purchase for environmental reasons. However, most of the returning customers requested free extra bags on the premise that they were regulars as part of a conflict of interests.
My alternative actions would include the following pointers. First, I could allow them to have the bags for free. Second, I could persuade them into paying for the extra bags as per the policy or bring bags to avoid the penalty. Third, I could allow my impatience to take over when arguing out the importance of adhering to store policy.
The first alternative would help keep the regulars as part of our esteemed customers. However, it would compromise the store’s policy by failing to exercise equal customer treatment. The second alternative would help achieve the store’s objective as well as keep the customers. The last option would mean that risk losing my job and the store losing its regular customers. It could also mean that I fail to achieve my ultimate goal of learning the desirable skills of conflict management.
Based on the above arguments, the last option would be the worst case scenario followed by option one. Thus, it would be best to choose option two and talk the customers into paying for extra bags. I could also ask them to bring extra bags in case they are not ready to spend extra on additional bags. My time here has taught me that customer services remain an important aspect to all retail stores. This decision reveals great conflict management skills as well as adherence to a suitable work ethic.
