Life in Singapore: Where Your Private Life Thrives

In this article, we discuss the average annual income in Singapore, theaa occupations where you can quickly increase your salary by relocating or changing jobs, and tips for raising your income in Singapore.

How to Embrace Imperfections for Growth: 3 Beneficial Takeaways

by Destiny Goh

  1. Imperfections are seen as weakness; many struggles to accept their imperfections and often dismisses them.
  2. Thinking in perspective through a growth mindset helps you identify your patterns, behaviours and habits that hinder growth.
  3. Throughout the refining process, you’d be able to assess problems objectively, compartmentalise and understand underlying causes and issues.
  4. Self-development enhances emotional intelligence in self-management, effective communication, active listening and empathy.
  5. This article is inspired by members at Good Job Creations.

Imperfections are often seen as the chink in the armour, an Achilles heel that most people won’t broadcast in the workplace. But imperfections can be powerful when it’s transformed—by embracing them.

But do not confuse your imperfections as your stumbling block, rather, an indicator for improvement. 

You can’t improve what you don’t know. It’s not news that the first step to any improvement, development or solution is to identify the problem, but can we suggest, that is, in fact, the inner conditioning of your mindset.

Truth is, we do see areas in our lives that need work; we have it pointed out to us, get called out for it, and perhaps, it’s written all over the result of our work.

Though it’s true: not everything that needs fixing needs to be fixed, and not every weakness will affect you in any way; working on it takes time and sacrifice.

So, if you allocate all that time to self-development, how can you do it, and what can you potentially learn? 

Here are 3 things you can learn throughout your process of improvement:

  1. Thinking in Perspective 

Psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Adolf Meyer says that human thoughts evolve through neurobiological changes—where the brain can reorganise due to experiences. Other complex interplays such as social and cultural influences, education quality, environment and more.  

Working on your weaknesses requires a deeper understanding of yourself, which can be done through self-reflection and acknowledgement. Of course, some might argue we don’t know what we don’t know, but that’s the beauty of getting constructive feedback from others—they see things differently to offer you a new perspective.  

Getting feedback is a tool for growth, but it’s not the determinant of your thoughts; your mindset is. Consider this: your mind creates, it’s not created. Thinking in perspective, through a growth mindset helps you identify patterns, behaviours or habits that may have been hindering any progress.

Keep a lookout for books that offer you a wealth of perspective; podcasts and TED talks offer insights from experts worldwide on diverse subjects; experience different cultures and diverse ways of living by travelling and cultural immersion; online forums such as Reddit and Quora allow you engage with people from different backgrounds.  

Consultant Rebecca shared that a positive attitude stems from a positive mindset. You’d be surprised how development in one area of your life can potentially affect your actions. 

2 . Make problem-solving interesting

This skill is often misunderstood by many; some may think they’re required to solve the problem immediately, that there’s only one correct solution, or that it’s a skill for the ones with the higher IQ.

If you don’t know where to start, we suggest observing how others do it. Don’t just pick anyone to mimic, rather, evaluate the impact of their decisions and actions, ask them about their values and what they believe, learn what inspires them and where they draw knowledge. 

Another method is to incorporate fun to stimulate your brain development. It could be teambuilding activities, a video game or problem-solving platforms on the internet—the options are endless. 

Say you’ve identified your area of weakness, addressing it will involve critical thinking, thorough analysis and evaluation of the overall issue. Such a process enhances your ability to assess problems objectively, compartmentalise them and understand the underlying issues. 

As you tackle them, it encourages you to think outside the box and explore unconventional ways; this, in turn, fosters brain creativity and cognitive fitness that exercises your brain to better reason, generate and experiment. 

3 .  Enhanced Emotional Intelligence

Working on weaknesses often incurs a series of emotions–frustration, disappointment or insecurity–yet this is also a time when you can practice self-management. For context, if your weakness is presenting during big meetings due to anxiety, you can manage that anxiety through breathing exercises and even reframing negative thoughts.

If you are seeking help, advice and counsel from others, you will need to learnhow to communicate your needs effectively—be specific with what you desire to achieve; practice active listening to allow yourself to reflect and retain useful information and foster meaningful relationshipsthat spur you toward growth.

Through this, you’d also be able to empathise with other people’s weaknesses and support them in ways you know best, which in return induces continuous learning. 

Rebecca also shared that accepting and acknowledging your worth is important throughout this development journey. Ultimately, it’s important to be kind to yourself; when you see an opportunity for improvement, and if it’s within your power to do so, why not choose growth?  

Emotional Intelligence: It Starts From Within

Most would say emotional intelligence is being in tune with their emotions—recognising their strengths and weaknesses, what makes them tick—or think it’s simply being ‘nice’ to others.

Though not entirely wrong, what’s missing is the relationships with others and their social environment.  In any working institution, emotional intelligence is the foundation of all relationships, and it ripples into our emotional expression and interactions with others.

See the four aspects of your Emotional Intelligence you can improve on.

What is Emotional Intelligence, and why is there a need for it?

Psychologist and best-selling author Daniel Goleman says it’s the ability to recognise and manage our emotions with the capacity to understand and influence the feelings of others.

It stimulates compassion for others, effectively communicating with different types of people in various situations and being both self and socially aware of your response towards others.

Four attributes that make up Emotional Intelligence:

An excerpt taken from Emotional Intelligence by author, Daniel Goleman

How can I improve my Emotional Intelligence ?

1. Self-awareness:

Rash decisions are made if we allow emotions to influence our judgement, whether stressed or even when we feel good. Yes, even feeling elated won’t keep you from making a wrong decision. A relatable scenario would be the exorbitant spending in the guise of ‘treating yourself’, but regret follows when the bills come in later for that fleeting ‘feel good’ moment.

Consultant Gabriel Tan shared that we’re all emotional beings, and all kinds of emotions easily sway us. Taking hold of your emotions will not make you a more controlled person but a wise decision-maker.

Pro tip: make an effort to be emotionally present bytaking a step back to consider the consequences of your actions and how they will impact you and those around you.

Pause to pinpoint your thoughts and emotions, ask for help if needed, and take heart that it isn’t a sign of weakness but rather your commitment and action taken to improve.

2. Self-management:

Self-management is what we do with the information gathered from being self-aware, and there are several key areas to build it on, such as:

  1. Authenticity
  2. Adaptability
  3. Optimism

Be authentic about your emotions and stay true to your values—though it doesn’t mean sharing anything and everything—but being consciously transparent about your beliefs, priorities and boundaries in your decision-making allows people to see your motives or intentions in plain sight.

Adaptability means working without boundaries and finding diverse and accidental solutions to tackle challenges. Observe, learn, or ask for guidance from those who exhibit this quality; reset and reframe your focus to objectively view things or practice self-talk like, ‘Just because I’m in a bad mood doesn’t mean I’ll have a bad day.

Optimism doesn’t mean closing a blind eye toward negativity, but reframing your mindset to filter out the good that comes from the situation—could be a valuable lesson or experience. Putting your thoughts into perspective helps form realistic interpretations that give you a positive outlook toward situations and people.

3. Social awareness:

Ever been told to ‘read the room?’

As we get better at managing our feelings and emotions, we’ll need to know how to read the emotions of others, as this will significantly increase the effectiveness of our interpersonal relationships.

The simplest example of being socially aware is to pay attention to a person’s body language then plan our responses accordingly. Be slow to make assumptions and listen to understand.

Gabriel gathered from his experience that like-minded people often create a healthy social environment, and companies with a great working culture don’t happen overnight. To make that happen, it’s important to be socially aware of our surroundings; making small initiatives through understanding, observing and respecting one another’s differences is a great start.

4. Relationship management:

In any healthy relationship, what we want to get out of it is self-development and the opportunity to develop others. Developing others is an emotionally intelligent skill we can cultivate through asking and giving constructive feedback—this allows us to exchange and learn from others’ ideas, strengths, and knowledge.

Offering your expertise creates opportunities to collaborate with people who fill the gaps they seek to bridge.

Next, create better conversations.

Radio journalist and public speaker Celeste Headlee, shares in a podcast that talking and conversing are two different things. The goal isn’t constantly proving you’re better than everyone else but getting people to be good talkers.

If you desire better conversations, learn to ask questions that spark your curiosity and refrain from equating your experience with whom you’re speaking to because there’s a chance you’d turn the focus back to yourself, morphing into conversational narcissism.

Cultivating emotional intelligence encourages you to constantly reflect, manage, and process your emotions. Then, include others and make them feel important as you embark on your journey to success.

Written by Destiny Goh
Marketing Communications Executive

Illustrations made with Canva