Life Apps

Taking a planned gap year is a life changing experience and provides an opportunity to learn more about you.

At mygapyear, we focus on our client’s emotional intelligence skills. Building your soft skills – or emotional intelligence allows you to recognize your strengths and leverage them for personal, academic and professional success. Developing your emotional intelligence will help you throughout your gap year; strengths that will serve you in your life today and tomorrow.

Mygapyear uses coaching to help our clients create meaningful goals for a gap year plan and for the future. Coaching gives you insight into yourself, an understanding of what your goals are and incorporates your values. This greater awareness leads to clearer choices, and opens you up to more possibilities both for a meaningful gap year and beyond.

Coaching in the context of a gapyear can enhance thinking and decision making skills and increase confidence- all great life skills.

We ensure that our clients explore what they have learned through their gap year experiences and how they can take this learning into their lives and their future.

 

Why do a Gap Year?

• Discover yourself and gain valuable life experience
• Explore a new purpose or career path that is waiting to unfold
• Develop leadership skills
• Gain a richer cultural understanding
• Build new friendships
  
• Brush up on a foreign language
  
• Provides an unparalleled growth opportunity before making the transition to the next chapter of life
  
• Build personal understanding and global awareness
  
• Return feeling valued, refreshed and self confident - ready for the challenges that lie ahead
  
• Enhance a CV or application form by developing experiences at home or abroad, learning that cannot be taught in a classroom
  

Click here to read "The 10 Reasons to Take a Gap Year"

 

Emotional Intelligence Difference

What is EQ?
EQ skills are a unique repertoire of emotional and social competencies that an individual uses to navigate the challenges of life.

It is defined by Daniel Goleman as “the capacity not only to be aware of and able to express our emotions, but to manage and moderate them effectively”. Furthermore, Dr. Reuven Bar On suggests that EQ is “an array of non-cognitive abilities, capabilities, and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures“.

Research has shown that in today’s ever changing world, emotional intelligence is a key ingredient to achieving personal, academic and professional success. It allows you to focus and leverage your strengths and acts as a compass to direct your energies and actions in the right direction.

The best part is that unlike IQ, emotional intelligence changes and can be developed throughout one’s life, so everybody can enhance their EQ!

How is EQ measured?
One of the most widely used tools to measure emotional intelligence is the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i). This assessment is the first scientifically validated test for emotional intelligence and was developed to answer the fundamental question “why some people are more likely to succeed in life”.

The EQ-i is a self report and breaks down Emotional Intelligence into 5 core areas and 15 competencies:

INTRAPERSONAL	INTERPERSONAL	Stress Management	Adaptability	General Mood
Self Regard	Empathy	Stress Tolerance	Reality Testing	Optimism
Emotional Awareness	Social Responsibility	Impulse Control	Flexibility	Happiness
Assertiveness	Interpersonal Relationships		Problem Solving
Independence
Self Actualization

The EQ-i promotes self-awareness, places current level of performance into perspective and gives you a practical guide for improvement. It accelerates coaching by identifying important skill areas that need improvement and areas that are potential blocks or barriers. The assessment also provides a benchmark of skills so you can track improvement.

 

Why is EQ Important?
Fostering and leveraging Emotional Intelligence can help individuals better cope with the roller coaster of transition.

It can help answer questions around what motivates us, assist in identifying strengths and personal goals, as well as adapt to environmental demands. For young individuals it can be a very powerful tool to use on their journey of self discovery and it can help empower students as they bridge the gap between high school and university and or university and transition into a career. Emotional intelligence can help you:

- Increase and build your self confidence

- Gain self awareness and insight

- Instill leadership qualities

- Foster emotional health

- Facilitate career development and career planning

It can also affect your ability to:

- make friends

- manage personal time

- create better study habits

- budget your money

- work well in teams

- move beyond feeling stuck and unmotivated

 

Incorporating EQ Development within a mygapyear program

Life experience itself is the best classroom when it comes to learning and developing the emotional and social skills associated with Emotional Intelligence. The mygapyear model provides an opportunity to hone these skills. Each client receives an assessment at the beginning of their program. This includes a report, a face to face feedback session and a customized personal action plan to develop specified areas and leverage strengths.

Having the assessment done prior to planning the “gap experience” helps the client discover who they are and what it is that they really want. This increased awareness in turn, leads to clearer choices, more relevant opportunities, and a more meaningful and fulfilling gap year.

For example, if an assessment indicates that a client needs to build self regard then the Gap experience can include activities that take the individual out of their comfort zone and provide challenges that give rise to increased self-efficacy and self confidence.

Emotional Intelligence development in conjunction with a mygapyear plan anchors clients in their true potential and leads to self fulfilment. 

Additional EQ packages are located in the Fees section of our website.