MOOD MANAGEMENT FOR SUCCESS

Intelligence alone is not adequate for our success in life.Intelligence needs to be supplemented by personal efforts and other factors.It is found that intelligence can help us in achieving success in life only up to 20 per cent while other factors contribute the remaining 80 per cent.
The other factors referred to above can be collectively called emotional intelligence.As a first step in the direction of acquiring emotional intelligence we must try to uindersatnd ourselves.This is called self-awareness.Self-awraeness is the capacity to recognise,analyse,and understand our feelings.If we have full awareness of our feelings we can achieve better control over our lives.We must make efforts to understand the feelings which occur without our being consciously aware of them.Somebody might have made a bad remark about you long ago.You might have completely forgotten it.But the same bad remark will cause irritation to you once again if some one points it out to you and makes you to recall to your mind such bad remark.
STARTING POINT
If you dissect your feelings and if you analyse them you will understand yourself well.Once you acquire the neededself-awareness you can build up competence witin yourself to change your feelings.Therefore acquisition of emotional self awareness is the starting point in developing emotional intelligence.Simply stated emotional intelligence is the ability to get rid of a bad mood.
We must try to maintain balance between good mood and bad mood.Our mood keeps on changing depending upon our feelings.Anger changes our mood.It is extremely difficult to control ourselves when we are swept by a strong feeling of sorrow or anger.Although it is difficult to control anger it is surely possible to control the duration of anger.
We can try to reduce anger by staying alone to cool down.When we are in angry mood we can even go for a walkand thus reduce anger.If you are angry on any specific or particular issue then to get rid of anger you can shift your attention to some other issueor topic of relevance.Later once your anger gets melted you can again take up the issue about which you were angry earlier.
If you become angry with a person who has committed a mistake you have to study the reasons for the mistake.If you analyse the reasons you may even discover that mistake was not intentional and at times the same may be for reasons beyond the control of the concerned person.Therefore when you are angry you must attack the reasons for the mistake instaed of attacking the individual.This will help you in reducing your anger.By reducing the period of anger as above ,by shifting your attention to issues other than on which you are angry and by attacking reasons for the mistakes instead of the individual who has committed the mistakes you can surely get rid of your bad mood.Mood management is vital for getting along with others and for happy social life.
SELF EMPOWERMENT
We must adopt the technique of self-empowerment and self-motivation.Empowering ouselves with feelings of enthusiasm,zeal and confidence is very vital for success.We must keep on encouraging ourselves.
High achievers usually empower and motivate themselves with feelings enthusiam,and they do not wait for motivation to come to them from others or from outside sources.A positive mental attitude combined with capacity to empower and motivate ourselves will surely fetch large measure of success.Often we find it difficult to avoid the temtation of immediate and short tem pleasures.In other words we find it difficult to avoid the fascination of immediate pleasure though it may be for very short period or even a moment.We do not think of long term goals.People who can control the impulse can avoid the the risk of going after immediate pleasures.
They will on the other hand aim at fulfilment of long term goals alone.This type of impulse control can be developed over a period of time through constant efforts and practice.When fascinated by short term pleasures remind yourself of long term goals and objectives.
CONTROL OVER SIGNALS
We must develop within ourselves the ability to be sensitive to the feelings of others.Such ability is very important for our success in different roles such as a family member,a worker in an organiastion,manager of a bank branch,a friend,a boss,a professional and so on.The more competent and adept we are in recognising the feelings behind other people's signals,the greater will be our controlover the signals we send.If you are adequately sensitive to the feelings of others you will surely be able to regulate your talk,and behaviour towards others to keep them also in a good mood.Thus mood management on the lines explained above is crucial for our success in life.
We must not only try to maintain a balance between a good and bad mood,but also help others in their mood management by being sensitive to their feelings and by means of regulation of our talk,mood and behaviour.Learning the art of managing our mood must be part and parcel of our individual development efforts.[Source-Canara Times dated 5th January ,1997]