Rita Chidinma: Learning Emotional Intelligence from Erica’s #BBNaija Disqualification

If you’ve been following the Big Brother Naija show, you can easily tell that Erica was one of the contestants who had a high chance of winning the prize. Her head was in the game and she had a strong fanbase. But she lost everything because of an outburst. She got strikes, then warnings, then a ‘strong final warning’, and then got disqualified.

Unbridled emotions have the capacity to set us back and ruin everything we have worked hard to achieve. How many times have we let our emotions get the best of us, only to regret it right after?

What happened to Erica can happen to anybody anywhere. You could work so hard at your organisation and be reprimanded for your shortcomings but if you refuse to take heed, one day, that organisation will be tired of correcting you all the time and decide to let you go.

As a parent, you may yell at your kids at the slightest trigger and apologise right after, but if you don’t start working towards managing your emotions better, one day you’ll yell and apologise and your apology will mean nothing to them because you’ve succeeded in creating a pattern and alienating the kids.

Sometimes, in a bid to communicate whatever issue is upsetting you to your loved one, you may let your emotions get the better part of you and say words that you ordinarily would not say. Now, instead of getting the succour or understanding you hoped to get from that conversation, you’ve succeeded in hurting his/her feelings and creating tension in the home.

You may always have an excuse to explain why you keep doing what you do but one day, like we saw in Erica’s disqualification, the excuses won’t hold water anymore and the apologies would mean nothing.

Notice how no one remembers the ‘trigger’ that led to the outbursts? That’s usually what happens when we let our emotions cloud our better judgement and overreact. You could have a legitimate reason to have that intense outburst but no one would remember it.

Self improvement is a very difficult task to take on as a young person, but also the most rewarding. If young people didn’t learn from Tacha‘s episode, I hope they learn from this one. We cannot keep cutting ourselves off at the very edge of our breakthrough.

Emotional intelligence is key to achieving your dreams – there’s a reason why it’s among the top skills to have in a work environment. Remember that you may forget what you said in anger, but the receiver of those words would hardly forget. Words scar people and most times, an apology can’t fix it.

I genuinely wish Erica all the best in her future endeavors. I hope she learns from this, bounces back, and wins.

Photo Credit: ericanlewedim