Page 194 - Foundations of Learning, 4th Edition (Revised)

Emotional Well Being

“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.”
Rita Mae Brown, American author

Take a moment to look at the emotional management skills shown below. These learning skills are from the
affective domain (in the Classification of Learning Skills, see Appendix B) and have to do with emotions
and emotional responses.

Emotional Development Skills: Emotional Management

responding to success coping making decisions
responding to failure grieving being confident
being patient
responding to humor managing frustration being assertive
managing dissonance managing worry being nurturing
asking for help maintaining balance being courageous
recognizing emotions taking risks being competitive
expressing emotions appropriately using intuition

At various times throughout your life, you will be in situations that require you to use each of these skills
for emotional management. Realize that by improving your performance with any one skill, you are making
a contribution to your overall emotional well-being. Imagine the growth that occurs when you focus on
improving several skills. A few of the skills most important to your success and emotional health as a
student are discussed in more detail.

Responding to failure
How a person responds to an unsuccessful outcome and his or her subsequent actions is an especially
important skill. Individuals who are adept at responding to failure display emotional maturity and
balance. They are able to reduce the impact of the failure by realizing that a failure is only a temporary
outcome and does not diminish current strengths. This is in contrast to those who feel self-pity and
make excuses after a failure.

When an unsuccessful event happens, a person who is strong at responding to failure:

• puts the event/failure in proper perspective

• self-assesses and determines what can be improved and identifies how to make the improvement
(realizing that overcoming the failure will require some extra effort)

• continues to recognize and believe in his or her personal strengths

Responding to success

How a person responds to a successful outcome and his or her subsequent actions is a skill. Those
who are strong with this skill are humble about their accomplishments and have learned to build upon
their successes. This is in contrast to those who behave in a cocky manner and live in the glory of past
accomplishments.

188 Foundations of Learning