Increase your EQ: Part I

The Three Selfs

Increasingly over the last year, people have asked me how I’ve tuned into my sense of perception and what they can do to increase their own EQ and intuition. My short answer to this is- Your understanding of situations and others is directly correlated to your understanding of self. You cannot fully understand others unless you reflect on yourself and understand your biases and create an open internal monologue. So how do you gain a better understanding of self? Here’s how I embarked on the journey.

My friend and mentor, Neal, is perhaps the most perceptive and tuned-in person I know. He’s helped me foster my own intuition over the course a few, intensely grueling years. During this transformative process, I tackled a series of uncomfortable and reflective questions which have helped me discover myself in my barest form. Once you discover who you truly are, the good, the bad and the ugly, you can make conscious changes to heal from past wounds and work towards a better version of ‘you’. Through this process, you will create an internal monologue focused on self awareness. One thing I have realized through my process, is that the question of ‘Who Am I?’ can be broken down into three essential versions of self. Let’s break it down.

Aspirational Self

Your Aspirational Self is how you view yourself. This version of self is generally quite shortsighted if the subject is insecure and refuses to be self aware; Most people avoid uncovering parts of themselves that they dislike, because they’re too uncomfortable to face. Most people would rather go on believing that they are the most amazing person they know.

True Self

True Self is the product of your actions and behavior- Think of it as a winding equation that encompasses everything you’ve ever done, said, or thought. Notice that I don’t mention things you’ve seen or experienced- While these are vital aspects of your growth, what matters in this equation is how you react to these experiences, and how you internalize them, not having the experiences themselves. For example, let’s say I accidentally stapled my finger while making 100 copies of a book report I was doing for college; In that moment, I’m in such a rush to get it into my professor, my brain doesn’t stop to think deeply about it. I stick a bandaid on it and move on without giving it another thought. On the other hand, my earliest memory is stapling my finger when I was 3 years old in India. I recall watching the small droplet of scarlet blood on my little finger grow bigger and I bigger, gaping at it in fascination and thinking ‘how pretty’! How I reacted to this experience, with curiosity and a fascination of the aesthetic elements present, as opposed to focusing on the physical pain of the experience, is ultimately a small component of my ‘True Me’- I still carry with me insatiable curiosity, an appreciation of visually pleasing elements, and a tendency to overlook minor injuries.

This realization, that it is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that makes you who you truly are, is fundamental in establishing a sense of accountability in your life. I wholeheartedly believe that you are who you want and who you decide to be- The excuse of ‘I am this way because X, Y and Z happened to me 10 years ago’ will not ultimately lead you down a life that you’ll be in control of or gage happiness from. To recap, the product of your actions is who you truly are- Hence I’ve termed this, your ‘True Self.

Perceived Self

This version of self is a product of how others view you. This involves a long equation of all of the experiences other people have had with you, and how they’ve reacted to them, in reference to you. These components often vary drastically, as you’re likely to have had different experiences with different people, and particularly if you’re more of a chameleon or have many different groups of friends and acquaintances. But holistically, it is how others view you. An exercise I pursued (which you can also use!) when learning more about this version of self, is to talk to a few different people of how they perceive me- I had them all write a short paragraph and three adjectives they’d use to describe me. While you can’t do this with everyone you’ve met, it’s certainly an insightful experiment to see if you’re projecting the qualities you aspire to.

So how does this theory help you increase your EQ? By defining these three ‘Me’s, and figuring out the differences between each of them, you can learn how to make them more synonymous. They’ll likely never be 100% in sync, but the more similar they look, the greater notion of self you can achieve. Often times, the more insecure you are, the less self aware you are, and the greater differentiation there is between your Aspirational Self and your True Self or Perceived Self.