spring!

i am so thrilled that winter is finally over.  even though we really had a very mild winter, it's still too much for me.  i like being outside and doing yardwork and gardening and not being cold.   so yay to spring!

we spent the weekend cleaning up our backyard, which hasn't seen any kind of gardening tool in probably 10 years.  we (jared) had to cut down a bunch of weed trees and then put them in a mulcher we rented.  it didn't work too well, so we ended up bundling sticks and having a controlled bonfire in the backyard. 

i haven't been feeling too good lately, so mostly i just supervised and watched.  next weekend jared has a huge dirt pile that he has to spread around the yard and then he's going to build some raised beds and i'll finally get to plant all my veggies!  i'm being smart this year and i planned out everything i'm going to plant on a calendar so that nothing will go to waste. 

my mom is coming to visit in a couple of weeks and that has kicked jared into high gear on the house projects.  he finally installed closet doors in the study last week and is about halfway done getting our hall closet in shape.  hopefully the house will feel a little bigger once all of my closets are done and i actually have some storage!

the honey-do list is getting shorter, but it still seems neverending!

emotional intelligence

i've always thought i was a pretty good salesperson.  it's what i do for a living, i like it, and so far i've been pretty successful.  it was review time for work last week and i went into my review thinking "i'm 112% of goal!  i did a good job!  they love me!"  the actual review was waaaay different and i was kind of caught off guard. 

while it was acknowledged that i reached my goal, far more time was spent on all the things i did wrong.  i didn't have enough meetings.  i'm not hitting my potential.   i felt like jennifer anistons character in office space when she's being lectured by her boss about how many pieces of flair she needs to wear. 

after getting off of the call and bursting into tears (which i was amazingly able to hold back during the call), i thought about it a little and realized that my boss was just trying to motivate me.  but he has NO idea how i am actually motivated.  he's treating me the way he would want to be treated, instead of treating me the way i want to be treated.

i've been reading a lot about emotional intelligence lately and how it is a much larger factor in success than IQ is.  the book i'm reading right now is how to sell with emotional intelligence and it has been very helpful for me to learn about my traits and why i find some other people SO annoying or hard to get along with.  

i scored pretty evenly in all categories - the range was from 12-48. My dominant personality is that of "motivator" (35), and my secondary is "enterpriser" (34).  the two that were equally my lowest were "togetherness" and "analyzer" (32).  i think this will help me recognize other people better and conscientiously adjust my personality so that i don't irritate them. 

here are a few of the traits - which one are you? 

 

A larger version of this chart can be found here.