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We've hit the midpoint of 2021. How are you doing with those goals?

It’s typical to begin this year with goals, resolutions and changes of habit that we believe will inspire us to do great things. No matter how clear our plans and actions are, we’re going to be affected by the environment and people around us. We’re going to need to rejuvenate and replenish our mindset with positive thoughts and to understand our needs better than before.

It’s why emotional intelligence matters so much — not just knowing what it means, but using its power to transform our mindset to accomplish what we want to most in 2021.

I want to share five ways emotional intelligence will help you grow as a leader in 2021, with clear direction on how to activate this amazing power.

1. Positive Self-Talk Fuels Positive Affirmations and How We See Ourselves

Our inner voice seems to always know what’s right for us and wants us to live our best life — that’s called our intuition.

One book that completely changed my outlook for living was Think and Grow Rich for the first time. This book forever changed my life and helped me to understand what I needed to do to get on track.

As you look at your life, you may begin to realize many of the things you want aren’t even a part of your life. You need to start thinking, visualizing and speaking these things into exist. Ask Why” and “What” questions that help you recognize what you need to take action. By asking these tough questions, you will grow in self-confidence and self-awareness.

For you: Start each day speaking positive affirmations about your life. Create a list of the five things you want most. Then, create a plan for how to get there. Ask yourself, “Am I growing?” “Do I feel happy?” “What will it take for me to feel like I’m living a fulfilled life?” That’s what self-awareness is all about.

2. Use Empathy to Create Powerful Relationships

Take your show on the road. In other words, make connections online and then look to build those relationships by giving away your skills, experiences and strengths for free. You will establish yourself as a great listener and leader who people want to partner with.

All of us want to learn from successful people, and we can do this by not trying to make things about us .

Every time I’ve done this, I made friends. I created future business partnerships. I earned a lot of supporters who then wanted to turn around and help me. Several of them did with the launch of my book, The Value of You.

For you: Use all of the tools on the internet that you have at your disposal to connect, meet with people (online or in-person) and create powerful relationships. Lead with a genuine, heartfelt desire to learn about that person and try and help them. Listen. Care. Help. Watch your relationships blossom.

3. Adapt to Change Better

Adaptability is all about knowing when to change the course, or whether to stay on the path we’re on. Adaptable people take every single lesson they can from experience and use it to their advantage. Adversity isn’t the end — in fact, it’s the greatest teacher. It’s led me to a life I love and I couldn’t be happier with the pain I felt.

What about you? Can you look back on times where you tripped up, got hurt, hit the ground hard and wondered, what next? What came of those experiences?

For you: First things first, you must embrace change in your life. Change is the law of life, so if you ignore change you’re making a huge mistake. Be willing to push yourself forward into new frontiers. Ditch the fear that previously held you back. Share your work, your writing, your art with the world. View adversity as an opportunity to grow.

4. Manage Your Time, Prioritize and Completely Chang the Way You See Your Life

A total game changer — take this Steve Jobs quote to heart:

“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

Emotionally intelligent people manage time efficiently and organize their day to focus on their most important things.

You can use “blocks” to plan your day. You can decipher the activities that bring you joy, happiness, fulfillment and success — and then plan a life around those things.

For you: Find a schedule management tool (i.e. Outlook, Google Calendar, etc.) and begin to organize your day. Plot out the most important activities. Create a list at the end of each day checking off the biggest accomplishments and reflecting on what you did well. Then, choose what you want to focus on for tomorrow.

5. Deal With Pain and Use it to Your Advantage

Pain and suffering in life are unavoidable. We will lose the people we love. We will lose jobs. People will say things that hurt our feelings. We’ll lose in business and other competitive endeavors. We will get knocked on our asses.

Then what?

It’s all about how we grow and profit from the pain that matters next. Pain often leads to pleasure for those of us that think positively, work hard and surround ourselves with people that lift us up, rather than tearing us down. I’m most proud of the emotional toughness and maturity I’ve reached by adapting to change and getting to know myself better.

For you: Think about the moment or moments in your life that have caused you the greatest stress, anger, anxiety and pain. What have you learned from these? Take the time to reflect and grow as a person. Rely on the people in your life to lift you up — but lift yourself up first. Be positive.

Focus on what’s next. Use motivation to your advantage — a huge part of emotional intelligence!

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You know that stare? You’re entranced and stuck in the moment.

You only realize it in hindsight.

When you find yourself gazing out the window, or at the small corner of the wall, or up at the ceiling. You’re so fixated on that one space as if it were reeling you in, looking to talk to you, or maybe even advise you. Once your consciousness comes back, you realize that you were lost in a moment. An imaginative glimmer in time.

Something has preoccupied you. Perhaps good, perhaps bad. But it’s preventing you from taking action.

Whatever past idea, struggle, thought, inspiration, missed chance, fear, anxiety or stress that has you captured, know that you may have to modify your process. In order to modify your process, you must begin with changing your habit. As the saying goes, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Take writing, for example. Every writer knows what writer’s block is all about. We feel completely stuck, unable to even commit the action to hit the keys on our laptop. It’s like we’re physically and mentally frozen. But in order to get to modifying the process, we first must change our habit. We must try something new when what we’ve trusted is not working.

In order to break one habit, we often have to break another, or at least course-correct our process. The familiar advice of “the conditions are never going to be right to begin — just go for it” rings true here. When you’re really stuck, forget about whatever process you’ve been following. It may not work that day or that hour.

“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you’re normally a very fluid, creative writer that can pump out 1,000 words in the span of 15 minutes, perhaps you’re best positioned to just start writing your ideas and thoughts down in bullet point bursts. I like to refer back to a notepad or journal of ideas or unfinished thoughts that were meant to receive new life at a future date.

If you’re launching a new app or digital marketing platform and your “golden idea” has yet to take off, it doesn’t mean that your idea is bad or wrong. But it may mean that you need to change your habit of approaching your business. You may need to course-correct and try a new marketing strategy. You may have a great product, but you’re unsure of the most effective way to sell.

Try a New Approach

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Dismiss the notion that you will focus your time and energy on anything else for a set period of time. Stay focused on the task at hand. Try these steps:

Steel your mind to be more productive by setting one task in front of you for a defined period of 15–30 minutes

This will help you develop consistency and a commitment to getting things done one-by-one, as opposed to worrying about the many things on your plate. You must break bad habits. A very bad habit is thinking you can accomplish the 100 things on your to-do list in a given day. Focus on the 1–2 most important things, then go from there. Modify when you choose to work on what you’re doing.

How and Why

Focus on the how of what you’re doing, and re-calibrate your why to make sure this is crystal clear and filled with purpose that aligns with your mission and definition for success.

Start with the fundamentals which will guide you and let you know about your habits and decision-making. Whatever fear or anxiety that you feel when you’re unable to move forward, make sure you understand this. Take a step back, reflect and give yourself a break. This will allow you to think clearly and re-program yourself for increased productivity.

By taking action, you block out that which holds you back. You press forward. To move forward, you don’t move backward. But, you do use your past experiences and perspective of lessons learned to educate you on how to improve and commit today.

Turn to reminders of great work you’ve done, compliments you’ve received, and honors bestowed upon you in the past. This boosted assurance and rush of adrenaline will always reboot confidence and hope.

Confidence, hope, and positive affirmations

These things are essential to taking action and finishing what you’ve started. You control these things through your attitude and mindset. Look inward and ask yourself what you can do to set yourself up for success. Don’t blame others.

Don’t make someone else’s problem your own. Absorbing someone else’s guilt, getting hung up on their issues or problems is mentally taxing and defeating. This sorrow deflates us and contributes to inertia. If you want to remain inert, then focus on other people’s problems. Misery loves company.

If you’re ready to take action, be willing to do the work of understanding the root cause of your inaction. This is essential to break bad habits. Get back to the fundamentals. Use your energy to focus on the habits, processes, and execution of what makes you great. Get started and leave the worry behind.

Motion creates emotion! Be willing to act and you will see results. Get massive productivity tips and join me on your journey at http://chrisdconnors.com

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I’ll admit it — I’m a sucker for the movie, Taken. Growing up in the golden age of vigilante films, I can spot a good one when I see it. Taken was a fine exhibition of this genre. One-man wrecking crews like Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were once all the rage, seemingly armed with a never-ending arsenal of skills that enabled them to take down entire villages and cities.

These warriors always had a crime to avenge and often very personal ones, at that. This post is not meant to laud action films but rather to help you tap into that indescribable greatness that’s inside of you. Or as Liam Neeson’s character, Bryan Mills would say, “Your very particular set of skills.”

Knowledge is not skill. Knowledge plus ten thousand times is skill. — Shinichi Suzuki

We’ve all acquired our own, “particular set of skills”, from a variety of personal, educational and professional experiences. Bryan Mills’ skills were acquired through — we can only imagine — what was a long, brutal career working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Chances are, like me, you’re not a spy. We’re fighting less strenuous battles, but hardly less consequential. In our pursuits, we’re developing skills. We’re thinking deeply about who we want to be and what values that will give to our life and to those we love. We should concentrate maximum energy and effort toward building these skills so they become strengths.

Life Tests Us

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period. — Brene Brown

Life isn’t easy, in fact, life often presents us with significant physical, mental, spiritual and emotional challenges. On the spiritual side, we’re tempted in a multitude of ways to live a life that wars with the inner core — the true self — of who we really are.

On the mental, emotional and even physical side, many of us will change jobs, deal with business setbacks and even deal with the personal loss. We have to then manage the awful pain that accompanies those losses. We meet temporary failure pursuing our dreams.

As we keep progressing through life, it only becomes easier to let these difficult experiences define who we are. The path of least resistance emerges as a simple choice for many people. We find ourselves unhappy with our circumstances, and we’re beaten down from setbacks that weaken our willpower and lead to complacency. It becomes easy to give in.

But we must never give in to that which we know is not right for us. We have to live with self-awareness in order to avoid repeating previous mistakes and increase our skill set. Once we have gained the value from our mistakes, triumphs and all experiences, we’re better equipped for anything the future will throw at us.

Complacency is the enemy of achievement. Adversity will stare all of us down, time and time again throughout our lives. The question we continually face will be: “How do we respond?” A wise person once said,

“Your desire to change must be greater than your desire to stay the same.”

Examine Yourself

“Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

As an author, I write about emotional intelligence and having the discipline to build a routine each day that maximizes your talent and skills.

The way to continue evolving and developing your unique, particular set of skills is to strive for improvement every day. You have to have goals in mind for what you want to accomplish. It’s best to view your picture in a holistic manner, taking into account your professional ambitions and skills, as well as the interpersonal and life skills you use each day.

Do you have an idea of what that picture looks like for your life?

Our personal and professional skills can always use a boost. Difficult times test us and shape who we are. Make sure that you let them shape you for the better. I encourage you to write out your current skills in the following four areas of your life:

1) Mental
2) Spiritual
3) Emotional
4) Physical

You’ll be amazed at what you put down on paper when you’re honest with yourself. Once you have written your current state, your mission is to bridge the gap between where you and where you desire to be in the future state.

When I haven’t been happy with my spiritual life, I’ve made it a plan to turn to search my soul and ask myself the difficult questions to understand why there is a lack of peace and harmony in my life. I have turned to my faith, relied on the help of others, but I have also sought time alone in solitude for reflection and contemplation.

When I felt like I was in a rut in my career, I reached out to trusted friends and mentors for advice. I improved my resume, networked ‘like a boss’ and determined what I needed in order to improve my skills. When I was having relationship difficulties or hurting emotionally, I turned to my family and friends for comfort and refuge. Fortunately, they have always had my back.

The Hunger For More

“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.” — Samuel Smiles

I’ve watched too many leaders become content with their own arsenal of skills — regardless of comparative depth — and then trudge on, for better or worse, finding whatever satisfaction and success they can. This is no way to live. We should always strive for greater things and empower ourselves through inspiration and the desire to seek greater meaning.

I’ve increasingly developed a burning desire to challenge my experiential status quo and hunger for more. Something more soothing to the soul — more in line with what moves me inside and feels like home. This desire is visualized in my mind — imagined and obsessed over and then put into plan so it will become my reality.

Connecting this bridge between what is imagined and what is actionable will lead to a flourish of excitement and a horizon of new opportunities. It’s a matter of you taking your current state, reconciling it with where you want to be, and determining how to do the work to help you get there in the most efficient way possible.

Along the way, fears and the voice inside our heads will occasionally remind us that we can’t do it. Just remember that you have your current and future state analysis to serve as your guide. When you put in writing what you need to do to find self-fulfillment and happiness, you’ll have a road map that guides and plots your path, when doubts arise.

We're all born with a particular set of skills that we are meant to share with the world. What are yours?

Join my newsletter for emotional intelligence and productivity content! and Check out my Amazon bestseller, Emotional Intelligence for the Modern Leader.

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When we see one of our peers excelling, the first thing that comes to our mind is usually: How did they do that? The best of us admire their accomplishments, but we also crave to get insights into how they did it. We want to know if we can blaze that same trail, and even get their quicker.

Through my years of academic research, working in business and coaching high-achievers, I’ve found that in virtually all circumstances emotional intelligence is the key differentiator for success. Here is some research to back that point up:

“After Motorola provided EI training for staff in a manufacturing plant, the productivity of more than 90 percent of those trained went up (Bruce Cryer, Rollin McCraty, and Doc Childre: “Pull the Plug on Stress,” Harvard Business Review, July 2003).” (Source: Harvard Extension School)

As I’ve written about previously, emotional intelligence is incredibly accessible and easy to apply. It’s a choice all of us can make each day.

We can all become more empathetic and better listeners.

We can all build time into our day to think deeper about our thoughts, the way we feel, and how those feelings affect our mood and actions.

We can all adapt to any new circumstance that we face — we just need the willpower and the understanding to recognize the stimuli we face, and how to react.

A great example of this is navigating the always-changing social media landscape here in late 2020. Look at the success of TikTok — now is likely the best time to “ride the wave” of success that this app is experiencing. Instagram and LinkedIn are still enjoying huge popularity, but less so these days for Facebook. You have to know when to adapt — whether to stay the course or change things up.

Self-awareness informs our entrepreneurial decisions. I’ve found this is crucial when determining what I’m doing well, what I enjoy, and what I should focus more of my energy on. We can’t do everything — or at least if we truly, we won’t do everything well. So it’s best when we’re constantly self-evaluating and having the awareness to know what we do well, and what we’re best to leave behind.

Here are four ways that emotionally intelligent people achieve life-changing success, and how you can do the same:

1. Use ADVERSITY to Your Advantage

After any loss, mistake, failure, it’s absolutely critical we evaluate that experience and determine why, how and most importantly what we can now do about it. Like every great entrepreneur, athlete or startup founder, we need to tweak, make adjustments and learn from what we just did. This is time think creatively and to self-analyze.

This is time to prepare, overcome and build resilience.

Take this on how children cope with adversity from the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University:

“Children who do well in the face of significant hardship typically show some degree of natural resistance to adversity and strong relationships with the important adults in their family and community. Indeed, it is this interaction between biology and environment that builds the capacities to cope with adversity and overcome threats to healthy development.”

It’s not time to beat ourselves up or criticize ourselves harshly. It truly is about using emotional intelligence to build resilience in the face of adversity. We all need to get smarter, wiser and more adaptable to advance forward onto the next dream, goal, task or opportunity. You’ll learn a lot about yourself and you’ll make your greatest strides once you begin to use adversity to your advantage.

2. Visualize the Win

Visualization is about seeing the Win. Visualize what you’re doing and color those thoughts with positive emotions. This takes a lot of self-awareness, and it also takes an optimistic, positive outlook to see good. Not everyone does this. People who lack self-awareness simply jump right in without a plan.

Visualization is about recognizing our emotions, imbuing our thoughts with positive energy and seeing the success, and then launching forward.

See yourself standing in the winner’s circle, paint that mental picture like you’re Picasso. Get descriptive, get specific and use your creative imagination by writing it down and turning this into something that is actionable.

3. Mastery Overcoming Stress

A major component of emotional intelligence is the ability to successfully process emotional and social stress. When we’re taking on too much stress, and worse — not even recognizing it, this can dramatically affect our productivity and overall well-being. As Daniel Goleman writes,

“When people are under stress, surges in the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol strongly affect their reasoning and cognition. At low levels, cortisol facilitates thinking and other mental functions, so well-timed pressure to perform and targeted critiques of subordinates certainly have their place.” Source: HBR

So, how do you overcome stress? Try these three things:

• Adopt a meditation practice. This works wonder for reflection, self-awareness, mindfulness and relieving stress
• Dedicate time to solitude for yourself, but also consciously plan time to spend around people that bring out the best in you and get you feeling good about yourself. If that’s not your family or friends, then find a local activity or group to get involved in
• Read a great book like Mindset by Carol Dweck, or perhaps even a book on building your foundation like The Value of You.

4. Add Empathy to Every Relationship

When you look to build relationships, lead with empathy. Empathy is:

“The capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, i.e., the capacity to place oneself in another’s position.”

Empathy is intrinsically self-giving and generous in nature. Genuinely seek to give, rather than to take for yourself. If you build relationships with a positive, authentic mindset and way of giving, you will find a loving, appreciative return. Lead with empathy — this helps in marketing, sales, business, friendships, attracting the life partner you want, and in every relationship.

As I write in Emotional Intelligence for the Modern Leader:

“When you begin each day, as you think about your goals, dreams, and ambitions, take the time to give thanks for the colleagues you have. Think about one way you can help someone and be willing to listen.”

Concluding Thoughts

You can improve your mindset and opportunities with emotional intelligence. You must be willing to adapt and make sense of your experiences in order to move forward. Focus on empathy, self-awareness and self-care and you’re well on your way to happiness, fulfillment and success.

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“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That’s the only thing you should be trying to control.” — Elizabeth Gilbert

While you may find it tough to feel inspired each day, it’s far from impossible. In fact, all it takes is some routine, discipline and consistency to build a daily life that yields results and happiness. I find that the evening and early morning hours are great for planning and refocusing our priorities. Some of my best ideas, as well as my most productive planning and actions have taken place in the early morning hours.

In fact, the majority of the writing that I did for my first book, The Value of You, occurred during the wintertime. It was a special time I’ll never forget.

In this vein, I urge you to develop an inspirational routine each morning. It may come through the power of meditation, prayer, genuine heartfelt interaction with those that you love or from your favorite song. It could be a video that plays back the piano recital you played to perfection that brought the house down.

It may be the words of this article or a book you find so profound and hold in such high esteem, you get the chills before opening the pages.

Develop your routine. I’ll show you what works for me and how you can integrate this into your life. Here we go:

Here’s How to Develop Your Routine

“Great are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force — that thoughts rule the world.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Make your routine an every day thing. As I’ve climbed the mountain of productivity over the past several years, I realize that I never want to come down. The ascension — the journey — has been a magical ride and it reassures me that all of my progress toward self-actualization, as well as greater harmony and rhythm in living the life of my destiny has been worth the pain and occasional doubts. Start with these five things: 

1. Dedicate 10 minutes of contemplation time, ideally, at the beginning of each day. This sets the tone for your day and gets you feeling inspired

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2. Use this time alone in solitude, in a quiet place. Focus your thoughts on positive, stimulating thoughts such as: achieving a big goal, making a difference in someone's life and the love you have for family. There’s tremendous power that comes through dreaming and seeing yourself standing “in the winner’s circle.”

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3. Get these positive thoughts going and keep them going. Write down these thoughts that come to mind. Keep referring back to them throughout your work day or school day. Think of them when you’re out in the social world, during moments of difficulty or times of joy. Look at them again before you go to bed at night and reset your mind. Then rest and get read for the new day with excitement, anticipation and a clear mind for fresh, new thoughts.

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4/ Get up, walk around and recharge your battery. No matter how hard you’re willing to work or how disciplined you are, you will find that you need to recharge and reboot. The best way to do this is to change your setting by changing your perspective. Clear your mind, go run a quick errand, take a brief walk. Then, think about how excited you are to start again.

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5. Have high expectations for results, but make sure that your expectations match your attitude and effort. Trust me — this one is last for a reason. To avoid disappointment and letdowns (the exact opposite of sustaining inspiration!), don’t expect great things if you’re not willing to put in the time. Invest your time wisely. Focus, act with confidence and eliminate distractions. This is how you build momentum!

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Your Journey

Where are you on your journey? Are you struggling at the moment? Do you see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel — the end-vision of your goal? And if you do, are you running into road blocks of creativity? What are your mental challenges? What are your emotional battles?

Perhaps your path is as open as the Pacific Coast Highway at sunset in Laguna Beach. Maybe it’s a Midtown Manhattan traffic jam. It’s all a state of mind. We need inspiration to help us create the beautiful landscapes of limitless possibility in our mind that serve as the foundation for our magical journeys.

You are the creator of your world. When you are safe in the knowledge that you control your worldly destiny, nothing will ever stop you. Those with a winning mindset are never denied. They inspire themselves to achieve great things.

The way to cultivate and build momentum — which you can then transform into empowered thought and constructive action is through inspiration — the power of “fire” that lifts your spirit and brings you unbridled enthusiasm. Be inspired everyday.

What has become truer for me by the day is the concept that we control our own destiny through the power of our thoughts. We emotionalize our ideas with the power of love, faith and hope. We take these thoughts and envision ourselves doing what we desire. And we put it into plan and take the action that we’ve dreamed of. It really is that simple. Do this and you will never be denied.

There is no shame in any idea, as long as you believe in it and feel it will add value to your life and the lives of others. Don’t concern yourself with the ingenuity of your idea. Your race, your cause is the one that speaks to the desires and dreams of your heart. That’s what makes you unique and special.

Be inspired. Enjoy this incredible time in your life and take some time for yourself to develop a routine that positions you for fulfillment and productivity. As St.Francis of Asisi once wrote, “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

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