From Challenges to Change: 3 Life Lessons I Learned from Unlocking EQ
by Alexandra Tanon Olsson
My family and I had just moved to a new city. My husband started a new job, I was launching new projects, my kids were in a new preschool, and our days were filled with boxes and routines that still didn’t feel like ours.
That’s where I found myself when I joined Unlocking EQ, a short but powerful course from Six Seconds that invited me to take a closer look at how I was showing up for myself and for the people around me. It turned out to be a powerful experience that helped me re-frame challenges and re-focus on what mattered to me most.
Starting Unlocking EQ: 4 Life Outcomes to Focus On
I naturally take charge of logistics at home: what goes where, when, and how, and that usually works well for us. I find that having systems in place brings more ease at home. But during that time of moving and chaos, I realized that our family really needed to work together instead of me running my one-woman show.
When the course began, we were asked to choose one of four areas in our lives to focus on:
- Effectiveness (our capacity to generate positive results)
- Wellbeing (our capacity to maintain energy and balance)
- Relationships (our capacity to build connection)
- Quality of Life (our capacity to create true happiness from a life well lived)
While all these areas felt relevant, Relationships spoke to me most.
And after completing the Unlocking EQ Profile, which highlights your current strengths and helps you see where to focus your growth, my results confirmed why. My strongest area was Effectiveness, I could handle the logistics and get things done, but Relationshipswas where I felt least satisfied.
That made a lot of sense. We were in transition mode, with lots of work surrounding us which I could manage efficiently, but I was craving more connection, teamwork, and a little more fun within our family. I was also longing for a deeper sense of belonging in this city we were beginning to call home.
How Emotional Intelligence Helped Me See Myself More Clearly
Prior to this move, we were actually preparing to relocate from Sweden to the U.S; a plan nearly two years in the making. My husband had left his job to study full-time for his U.S. licensing exams, which meant months of travel for consulting work, long stretches apart, and me at home with a newborn and a two-year-old. We’d let go of our apartment, sold nearly everything we owned, and had our bags packed. One week before our flight, the job offer that made it all possible suddenly fell through. We were crushed.
Fast forward to my first day of Unlocking EQ, where I saw my profile results: high in Effectiveness, lower in Relationships. It wasn’t a shocker. During that season, I’d been in survival mode, focused on keeping everything running smoothly for our family. Taking control of my surroundings gave me a sense of stability, but I was holding the reins so tightly that there was little room left for teamwork, play, or even for me to feelwhat was really going on inside.
During the course, we were introduced to the Six Seconds Model of Emotional Intelligence:
Know Yourself. Choose Yourself. Give Yourself.
It’s about increasing awareness, being intentional in how we respond, and acting with purpose. Or simply put: how we think, feel, and act, and how aligning those three helps us create the life we want for ourselves.
I began asking myself:
- What am I feeling right now?
- What options do I have?
- What do I really want?
I hadn’t paused to ask myself these questions in some time, but when I finally did, I felt more connected to myself. I understood the patterns that had formed in the most recent year.
For a long time, I thought my challenges were things outside of me: problems to manage, fix, or push through. But when I finally slowed down to reflect, I realized it wasn’t just the circumstances that were difficult; it was something much deeper.
I’d gotten so used to pushing past discomfort, to staying strong, to being “effective,” that I didn’t notice how often I was pushing away my emotions.
I wasn’t allowing myself to feel.
And beneath the surface, quiet patterns were shaping my days: ways of thinking, reacting, and needing to stay in control; patterns I once thought kept me “safe”, but in reality were keeping me stuck.
I was the one holding myself back from what I truly wanted: connection.
Putting Emotional Intelligence into Practice
Through small, intentional exercises, reflection, and group discussions, I began to see my patterns in real time: how I responded to stress, avoided difficult emotions, and tried to stay in control. With that awareness, I started to map out what I truly wanted my life to look like, and the small, daily steps that could move me closer to it.
It wasn’t an overnight shift, but a gradual rewiring. Learning to pause before reacting, to make choices that reflected my values, and to allow others in instead of carrying everything alone.
I began to see that being effective isn’t just about managing tasks, it’s about managing myself in a way that allows space for others to thrive too. And perhaps most importantly, I realized that awareness alone isn’t enough; it’s what we do with that awareness that changes our lives.
Why Emotional Intelligence Matters
When I first joined Unlocking EQ, I didn’t realize how much I was running on autopilot. I was looking for tools to help me navigate a busy season but what I found was a deeper connection to myself: the space to slow down and listen inward. It’s where everything stems from, after all.
The course weaves together neuroscience, emotional intelligence, and reflection in a way that helps you see what’s often invisible: the emotions driving your choices, and the thoughts shaping your days. It helped me understand not just why emotions matter, but how to use them as resources for clarity, connection, and wellbeing.
It all begins with a simple framework: Think → Feel → Act.
What we think influences how we feel, and what we feel drives how we act. When we learn to align the three to use both our heart and our head, we start making choices that reflect what matters most to us.
That’s what emotional intelligence really is: being smarter with feelings.
For me, that meant noticing the moments I was reacting on autopilot: rushing, controlling, or trying to hold everything together. Instead, I began pausing long enough to ask, What’s really going on inside me? That small shift changed my relationships completely.
Whether we realize it or not, the thoughts that fill our minds, the feelings that flow through our bodies, and the small steps we take each day are shaping our lives. If we’re not intentional, something deeply important can slip through the seams of our routines. Unlocking EQ gave me the awareness, the tools, and the language to notice these patterns, to slow down, and to begin choosing differently.
3 Life Lessons I Learned from Unlocking EQ
- Awareness brings freedom. Once I started recognizing my emotional patterns, the way I avoided discomfort or held on to control, I could finally understand what was driving them. That awareness helped me recognize when I was slipping back into survival mode and gave me the freedom to choose differently. Before that, I was reacting on autopilot, relying on what had “worked” in the past without realizing how much it was costing me.Through the course, simply noticing what was happening inside me created the space to respond in a way that reflected who I wanted to be, not just what the moment demanded.
- Connection begins with presence. When I learned to be present with my own emotions, I became more patient, open, and connected with myself and the people around me. I realized I didn’t need to do more to create connection; I just needed to be there, without performing or trying to manage everything. Connection grew not because I pushed harder, but simply because I was actually there.That presence created the space for the connection, teamwork, and joy I had been craving.
- Emotions are data, not directives. One of the biggest shifts for me was realizing that my emotions weren’t problems to fix or things to push away. They were information: signals pointing me toward my needs, my values, and what mattered most to me. Instead of letting stress or fear automatically drive my decisions, I started sitting with my emotions long enough to understand their message. Sometimes it said, “slow down.” Sometimes, “ask for help.” And sometimes, “you’re holding too tightly, let others in.”
The Bigger Picture: How Emotional Intelligence Transforms Your Life and Relationships
Emotional intelligence touches the core areas of our lives: effectiveness, wellbeing, relationships, and quality of life; the very areas we explored in the course.
When we strengthen our EQ, we’re not just improving ourselves; we’re transforming the environments we’re part of.
Research from Six Seconds’ 2024 State of the Heart report shows that emotional intelligence scores around the world have declined by over 5% in recent years and yet people with higher EQ experience stronger connections, more balance, and greater effectiveness.
In a world that constantly asks us to do more, emotional intelligence helps us slow down, stay present, and focus on what really matters.
That’s the heart of this work. Change begins within us, and from there, it ripples outward into our homes, our workplaces, and our communities.
An Invitation: Start Your Emotional Intelligence Journey with Unlocking EQ
If you’ve been feeling the pull to slow down, reconnect, and rediscover what truly matters to you, I can’t recommend Unlocking EQ enough.
It’s more than a course, it’s a pause.
A space to reflect, to see yourself clearly, and to begin leading your life with compassion and purpose. Whether at home, at work, in your community or in the ways you show up for yourself.
Many people find that completing Unlocking EQ naturally opens the door to the next step, the EQ Practitioner Certification, which goes deeper into applying emotional intelligence in daily life and with others, but the first step is simply to know yourself better.
Because when you know yourself, choose yourself, and give yourself, you don’t just grow.
You reconnect with who you were meant to be.
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