Young people who have the opportunity to be part of our ‘Building Self-Belief’ programme get the chance to complete their own personality assessment. We believe this can be a powerful tool for 16-25 year olds as they navigate the complexities of the world and try to understand themselves better. Here are some of the benefits of personality profiling:
Self-discovery: Personality profiling helps individuals understand their strengths, weaknesses, values, and interests. This can be incredibly empowering and can give young people a sense of direction and purpose.
Better relationships: Our colour model of behaviours also helps young people understand how their personality affects the way they interact with others. By gaining insight into how they communicate and relate to others, they can develop stronger, more meaningful relationships.
Career development: Personality profiling can help young people choose careers that align with their strengths, values, and interests. This can lead to greater job satisfaction and career success.
Improved communication: As part of our course we look at different styles of communication. Helping young people understand how others see them and how they can communicate more effectively with a range of people is really powerful. This can be especially useful in the workplace and in personal relationships.
Increased self-awareness: Personality profiling helps individuals understand their behaviour, thoughts, and emotions. This increased self-awareness can lead to better decision-making, improved relationships, and greater life satisfaction.
At TCWF we believe that understanding yourself is a valuable tool for young people as they navigate the challenges and opportunities of adulthood. Whether they are exploring their own identity, improving their relationships, or developing their careers, personality profiling can provide useful insights and support.
What is emotional intelligence? Can you learn it? Can you become better at it? At TCWF we totally believe that you can and that’s why its fundamental to our #buildingselfbelief programme for young people.
Emotional intelligence (EQ), or the ability to understand and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others, is a crucial aspect of our lives that can greatly impact our success and happiness. Whether in our personal or professional lives, having a high level of EQ can help us navigate complex social situations, build stronger relationships, and lead us to a more fulfilling life.
So, how do we help young people raise their EQ (and what can you do to improve yours)?
Here are some strategies that we use and you can apply:
SELF AWARENESS
We help young people build #selfawareness: The first step in increasing your EQ is to become more self-aware. This means paying attention to your own thoughts and feelings, and understanding how they affect your behavior and the people around you. You can start by taking time each day to reflect on your emotions and thoughts, and keeping a journal to track your progress.
EMPATHY
We help young people develop empathy: Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. To develop this skill, try to put yourself in other people’s shoes, and imagine how they might be feeling. This will help you understand their perspective and respond to them in a more meaningful way.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS
We spend time with young people developing their communication skills: Effective communication is a key component of emotional intelligence. Understanding your methods of #communication and how different this could be to others can help you adapt your style to the situation. To improve listen actively, ask questions, and avoid making assumptions about others. Also, practice expressing your own thoughts and feelings clearly and assertively, without being aggressive or confrontational.
SELF-MANAGEMENT
We help young people work out strategies to manage their emotions: Emotional management involves regulating your own emotions in a healthy and productive way. We enable young people to identify triggers that cause strong emotional reactions, and so develop strategies to manage them in a constructive manner like practicing mindfulness, taking regular exercise, listening to music etc.
RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
We enable young people to understand the differences between people so that they can build more productive relationships: Building strong and positive relationships is an important aspect of emotional intelligence. This means taking the time to get to know people, showing genuine interest in their lives, and being there for them in times of need. It also means learning to manage conflicts in a healthy and productive way, and being open to feedback from others.
Developing #emotionalintelligence takes time and effort, but the benefits are well worth it. By becoming more self-aware, practicing empathy, improving communication skills, managing your emotions, and building positive relationships, you can greatly enhance your personal and professional life.
Start today and watch your emotional intelligence grow.
Sarah Rayment is our new Building Self-Belief Course Deliverer. She’s also a coach, writer and proud introvert. When it comes to The Colour model, she has a dominant Green personality. In her blog post, she shares the strengths and challenges of being a deep thinker.
Hands up if you’re an overthinker. Or you’ve been told you are by exasperated friends and family who can’t see what the problem is and why you can’t just make a decision!
What if I told you that you’re NOT overthinking, just processing?
Some of us are deep thinkers. We sift through layers of knowledge and experience, facts and figures, our instinct and other people’s potential thoughts, feelings and reactions before we make our next move.
Some of us focus on outcome and action first, move forward and then do the thinking we need to, if we need to.
Neither way is better. Just different. And, of course, there are plenty of in-between thinking systems too.
I sit firmly in the first category. Recently, I’ve discovered a way of describing my experience of thinking as having the whole world in my head at once. Before I can respond to a question or decision, I take into account everything that’s ever happened to me, to everyone I know, everything I know about the world (fortunately, that’s not much).
From the outside, this looks like overthinking. I mean, why do I need to consider all of this before I decide if I want tea or coffee???
I just do. It’s how my brain is wired… and I like it (most of the time).
On the inside, I’m going through a mental filing system until I find the answer. It’s methodical. I call it processing and it takes me longer than most people I know. But that’s OK!
If you’re like me on any level, you’ll know that this can be exhausting, and sometimes frustrating for you, and others.
With any thinking style, problems can arise. For the deep processors, this includes:
When we’re trying to communicate with people who think differently. For example, the people who focus on outcome and action first and do the thinking later who might see us slow and indecisive – even when we’re not.
When we’re having a bad day and there’s just so much to think about and process that we get stuck and we ARE indecisive Argh, the agony of indecision!
The antidote to both of these problems, as I see it, is awareness.
Once we understand and embrace the way our brains work (and dare I say, love the way our brains work), the magic happens!
We start to recognise our own thought patterns and processes.
We start to trust that we’ll get there.
We recognise that when frustration creeps in, we are probably stuck.
We recognise that when we keep looking at the same ‘mental file’ over and over again we are definitely stuck.
We learn to be patient with ourselves and those around us.
We start to see our superpowers and we see the superpowers of others.
And it’s our superpowers that help us to understand and embrace the way our brains work.
You see, as deep thinkers, we have a longing to understand everything. We unpick, we research, we learn from our experiences. We can step away from other people’s opinions and judgements to dig deep and discover. We are thoughtful and empathetic. We have incredible self-awareness and spot things in other people too.
The trick is to combine our self-awareness with taking action. Here are a few ideas:
Our listening superpowers help us to build intimate relationships with others which makes us great team players. When we’re stuck, we can collaborate with others to speed things up, and get a little bit of reassurance, too.
Our natural preference for reflection means we can spend some time noting down the things we’re likely to get stuck on so we can prepare ourselves to take action when they arise.
Another of our superpowers is being adaptable. And because we consider everything, we’ve got the facts alongside the more nuanced thoughts, so we’re set up to change our communication style when we need to. We are perfectly capable of offering fast, no messing about, concrete solutions and focusing on action. We might just feel a little shaky afterwards.
However, because we are adaptable. We’re so busy considering everyone else’s needs that we forget to advocate for ourselves. So, when we’re feeling pressured, it’s perfectly OK to say ‘I need a few minutes to process this,’ or to take ourselves off to a quiet space and work through things without interruptions.
We do our thinking for a reason. By the time we’ve thought something through we’ve considered many different perspectives, and often ones that no one has thought of. We can have every confidence that what we have to say is valuable and worth speaking up about.
Because we care about others, we can see that the person we’re communicating with might just need a quick answer and not be so bothered about the details. So, every once in a while, we can gently persuade ourselves to make a decision and think it through later. How liberating! Throw an idea out there, impress others with our quick thinking and creativity, then scurry off to enjoy a bit of processing time, with a cup of tea… or coffee… or tea… or something else.
Our brains are marvellous, aren’t they? Are you a processor too? We’d love to know, and happy thinking!
