Emotional Credit Rating
“Lien on me, when you’re not strong”
In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People1, Stephen Covey divides seven habits into two spheres: private victory and public victory2. The first three habits help move you from dependent to independent to become a more effective individual. This is your private victory. The next three habits help move you from independent to interdependent to become a more effective member of society. This is your public victory. The seventh habit is renewal, where you regularly revisit and hone the other six habits, iteratively raising your overall effectiveness.
In his introduction of the public victory habits, Stephen introduces the term “Emotional Bank Account”, which he defines as “the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship.” Relationships are complex and varied, making them very hard to assess. That’s not really a problem, because we spend less time evaluating relationships than we do experiencing relationships. Nonetheless, having tools to help measure both the health and value of a relationship can be helpful to periodically assess the give and take of a relationship.
With an Emotional Bank Account, you are making deposits when you invest in the relationship and build energy and trust, and you are making withdrawals when you sap that energy or betray that trust. Your strongest relationships have a high balance in their accounts, while your weakest relationships are the ones that are at risk of being overdrawn, or perhaps already are.
I like the metaphor of a bank account to represent the stockpiled energy and trust in a relationship, and I’d like to expand on this. Emotional Bank Accounts are very specific, with each account relating to a single relationship. A person can have a highly positive balance for one relationship while running negative for another relationship. Your public victory comes from intentionally managing all of your Emotional Bank Accounts … your overall Emotional Credit Rating.
This isn’t about keeping score, but about raising your own awareness3 on how you show up in your relationships. You can use these insights to invest strategically in your relationship portfolio, becoming a more effective individual and a more effective member of society.
Here’s how to measure and manage your own Emotional Credit Rating.
