If you watched the video, what parts did you find most insightful? We would love to hear from you in our comments section below.
7. Exercise to Increase Your Self-Awareness
All you need to start improving your self-awareness in a group setting is a stack of 3 x 5 index cards. Oh, and a group of people!
Here are the instructions:
Part One:
- Ask the participants “How do you feel?” Ask each participant individually instead of in the larger group, if possible.
- Most people will probably say they feel fine, so prepare to start the exercise with this: “Why do we almost always say we are fine, even when we are not?”
- Continue the discussion with questions like:
- “Do you find it easy to talk about your feelings?”
- “What makes it hard to talk about your feelings?”
- “Can you consciously shift your feelings from one to another?”
Part Two:
- Discuss how important it is to understand the wide range of human emotions so you can better understand yourself and others, and give yourself the opportunity to regulate your feelings.
- Instruct the group to think of as many emotions as they can and write one on each card.
- Spread the cards around on a table so you can help the group avoid creating duplicates.
Part Three:
- Collect all cards and put them upside down on the table.
- Ask each participant to pick two cards at random.
- Take turns asking each participant to reveal their cards and explain what it would take to get from one emotion to the other.
- After the participant provides their explanation, allow other participants to share their own explanations.
- Follow up with a discussion, using questions like:
- Do you think you came up with many emotions?
- Was it easy?
- Are you surprised there are so many emotions?
- Was it easy to switch from one emotion to another?
If any of these activities interests you, be sure to check out this post on the Emotion Wheel.
5 EQ Worksheets
If you like circling, underlining, and filling in the blanks to work on improving your emotional intelligence, you might find these 6 EQ worksheets helpful.
1. Giving Feedback: Improving Your Self-Awareness
With this worksheet, you’ll boost your self-awareness and, in turn, your emotional intelligence.
Here are all the questions it poses:
- Think of when you were a leader and you took a stand and made sure everyone followed.
- How did you feel?
- How do you think others felt?
- Think of when you were a leader and took a stand on an issue and then backed down.
- How did you feel?
- How do you think others felt?
- Think of when you were a leader and didn’t take a stand on a particular issue when you should have.
- How did you feel?
- How do you think others felt?
- Think of when you were an employee and took a stand on an issue and did not back down.
- How did you feel?
- How do you think others felt?
- How did your boss feel?
- Think of when you were an employee and took a stand on an issue, felt forced and backed down.
- How did you feel?
- How do you think others felt?
- How did your boss feel?
- Think of when you were an employee and didn’t take a stand on an issue and then later strongly regretted that you should have not backed down.
- How did you feel?
- How do you think others felt?
- How did your boss feel?
If you complete this worksheet and want to continue the self-exploration and EQ-boosting, go through these discussion questions:
- How useful were the questions?
- Did you discover something about yourself that you were not aware of before?
If you completed this worksheet in a group setting, you can also use these two questions to spark a useful discussion:
- Did you get inspired by what others found about themselves?
- Did their thoughts make you feel more comfortable about yourself?
2. Self-Awareness Activity
Another good worksheet for enhancing your self-awareness comes from Florida State University.
It begins with a great point: it’s hard to make changes to yourself when you aren’t sure where to start! Enhancing your self-awareness will help you figure out what your strengths are, where your EQ competency levels lie, and where you should focus your self-improvement efforts.
The worksheet lists 30 strengths or character traits that you might feel are strengths or areas for you to improve. This list includes traits like:
- Creative
- Confident
- Positive
- Funny
- Curious
- Imaginative
- Hard-working
On one side, there is space to identify three strengths you have and on the other, there is space to identify three traits you would like to work on.
If you think of any strength or an area you’d like to improve that is not included on the list, add it in any way. Your list should be personalized to you, so add and edit what you need!
3. Social Awareness Activity
If you feel comfortable with your self-awareness but are less comfortable with your social awareness, this worksheet is the one for you!
Social awareness is all about how well we understand others, how we recognize and identify emotions in others, and how we manage emotions in social situations.
The worksheet includes five pictures of faces with various expressions and a list of emotions on the other side, like:
- Stressed
- Peaceful
- Disappointed
- Relaxed
- Upset
- Frustrated
- Tired
- Happy
The instructions state that you should feel free to match more than one emotion with each picture and that you’re free to add more emotions if you’d like. The point of the worksheet is not to create a one-to-one match or to get them “right.” Instead, the point is to be more aware of the emotions of those around you and to be more attentive and responsive in your interactions with others.
4. Self-Management Activity
If you’re more interested in improving your self-management skills than your relationship management skills, this worksheet can help!
It opens with this description:
“Self-management builds on the basis of self-awareness and is the ability to control your emotions so that they don’t control you. Self-management means you’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.”
The worksheet lists some positive and negative emotions for reference.
Positive emotions include:
- Happiness
- Excitement
- Joy
- Peaceful
- Relaxed
- Calm
- Cheerful
- Caring
- Flexible
- Harmonious
The negative emotions include:
- Anger
- Disappointment
- Exhaustion
- Frustration
- Stressed
- Concerned
- Worried
- Anxious
- Defensive
- Confused
This activity can be focused on any emotion, but the worksheet targets anger. Here are the instructions:
- Think of a time when you were angry and how you handled it.
- Describe your reaction and behaviors in the lines provided below.
- Fill in the blanks: “The last time I was angry I…”
Once you have filled in the blanks above, move on to planning for how you will handle future episodes of anger:
- Think about how you would like to process anger in the future.
- Describe healthy management skills and behaviors and write them in the lines provided. You might list management and coping skills like:
- Breathe deeply
- Take a break
- Go for a walk
- Take a shower
- Distract yourself
- Lie down
- Think before speaking
- Write about it
Keep these planned future coping skills in mind and make sure to pull them out the next time you get angry.
5. Name Game
This worksheet is a great choice for teens and pre-teens who are just beginning to learn about emotional intelligence and working on building valuable social skills.
The worksheet includes two spaces to write out two names: the teen or pre-teen’s own name, and the name of a friend or family member who has influenced their life.
In the first space, the user should write out each letter of their name in a vertical format. Next, they will note an adjective that describes one of their positive traits for each letter of their name.
For example, if your name is Jane Doe, you might write:
J – Joyful
A – Assertive
N – Nice
E – Energetic
D – Delightful
O – Optimistic
E – Even-tempered
The user should complete their own name, then do the same for the person who has influenced their lives.
Completing this worksheet will help the user to start thinking about themselves, their personality, and the traits and characteristics of others. This will help them stay open-minded and attentive to emotions – both their own emotions and the emotions of others.
Emotional Intelligence Workbooks (PDFs)
If you’re looking for a workbook to guide you through improving your emotional intelligence, you have several options. Here are just a few of the workbooks available (some paid, some free):
PowerPoint Presentations on EI (PPTs and Images)
Workbooks aren’t your style? Are you more of a visual learner? No problem!
For more information on emotional intelligence, check out these slideshows and presentations on the subject:
- Emotional Intelligence: How Your Emotions Influence Your Life at Work and at Home by Rebecca Gulliford from The University of Buffalo School of Management (Access here)
- Emotional Intelligence at Work by Sanchita Singh on SlideShare (Access here)
What our readers think
Hello, I would love to use the emotional intelligence hand outs for my DNP project as part of the “EI education” i will be implementing at the site.
Regards,
Lissette
A very useful resource for EI. Thank you
wonderful resource, amazing video, thank you so much for sharing!
Indeed a worthwhile read, for anyone seeking to explore Emotional Intelligence.
I appreciate this article and would like to use it for my research
Hi Mrumun,
Glad you found the post useful! Yes, we are happy for you to include references to this post in your research, provided you could please include a citation and link to the original post in your publication.
Thank you.
– Nicole | Community Manager
A very in-depth article. Thanks!
Wonderful summation and representation from a variety of reputable sources. I use this with executive clients and students. Thank you.