Emotional Inteligence (working from a UK Coaching resource pack)

 Emotional Intelligence: Being the Best Version of You - UK Coaching

Emotional Inteligence can be split into personal and social skill areas.  It reflects on how well a person can self regulate, be self aware, be aware of others and manage relationships with others.

Awareness of Self

It is about managing emotions - not supressing them, but recognising them and leaning into them in a healthy manner or putting them to one side in that instance and dealing with them when it is safe and apropriate to do so.  So, how do I react under pressure?  Honestly?  Not well.  I do recognise that I'm not good under pressure and I try to avoid conflict where I can to avoid the unpleasant feelings it causes.  This is tricky in life, and especially in playing sports.  Whereas half of me wants to compete and grow through that, a huge chunk of me is genuinely fearful of failing, and thus failing the team and how I will react to that.

Awareness of Others

Oh, hello Autism!  Well, this might be tricky then :D  Reading the room (or the sports hall) isn't easy.  I try really hard to read how people are, and respond, but often I pick up on, and reflect back their feelings rather than work with them to direct their energy safely and effectively.  I'm not sure you can learn how to do that?  Maybe asking how people are would make it easier?

What I am good at, is seeing progress, and praising it.  I love seeing people develop in the game, and love watching juniors grow into young people.  I can't be the inspirational leader from the top of my game, but I can be tenacious and keep going to the best of my ability.

I'm not sure how to "fix" this, and it's why I don't properly coach, just do "activator" sessions where I'm leading activities in a safe space for a short time.  That's not a self criticism, we can't all be leaders, can you imagine the chaos?  I'm more of a cheerleader, trying to spot skills growing in the team and feeding back to them how well they are doing.  And that's fine, that's what I do best.  I guess that's self awareness right there!