Experience is not what happens to you, it is how you interpret what happens to you. –Aldous Huxley
When I facilitate sessions about Emotional Intelligence or conduct leadership coaching each week, I always hand out the color wheel pictured below.
I do this to give people a resource when their emotions cloud their ability to find the words to express themselves. As Daniel Goleman states, Emotional Intelligence matters: “Comparing the three domains, I found that for jobs of all kinds, emotional competencies were twice as prevalent among distinguishing competencies as were technical skills and purely cognitive abilities combined. In general, the higher a position in an organization, the more EI mattered: for individuals in leadership positions, 85 percent of their competencies were in the EI domain.”
Not only is a high Emotional Intelligence critical in today’s workplace, it is instrumental in our fast paced world. For that reason, when I heard about a new app called the Mood Meter, I downloaded it that very day. The Mood Meter is one tool used in the RULER approach developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. RULER is an acronym: Recognize, Understand, Label, Express and Regulate emotions. The app is the new hip version of my trusty color wheel!
Here is a high level of how it works:
You can plot how you feel on the Mood Meter as often as you wish:
The Mood Meter will then help you build your vocabulary around how you are feeling:
You will be prompted to explore what is causing you to feel a certain way and to identify patters of emotions:
The Mood Meter can suggest ways to shift or maintain emotional states based on your desired path:
You can even set reminders and the Mood Meter will check-in with you and see how you are feeling:
While Mood Meter is just one tool in the RULER approach, I have found it helpful after using it for a few weeks because it uses color identification. Attaching colors to emotions means that building self-awareness, learning to regulate emotions and shifting emotions when necessary has a visual element that makes it easier to identify emotions quickly and with enhanced accuracy.
The one thing we can control is our emotions and how we interpret the things that happen in our experience. During this season of resolutions, I find it refreshing to take the time to meter my mood. The very act lands me in the present moment and brightens everything that is to come.
Being aware of the color you are projecting is powerful because … “The best color in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.” Coco Chanel
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