Emotional Intelligence
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient or EQ, is the ability to recognize, use, and control one’s own emotions in a constructive way in order to reduce stress, communicate effectively, sympathize with others, overcome obstacles, and diffuse conflict. Emotional intelligence aids in the development of stronger relationships, academic and professional success, and the attainment of career and personal objectives. It can also assist you in connecting with your emotions, putting your intentions into action, and making educated decisions about what is most important to you. In this article we will learn how to build emotional intelligence or the 4 key skills to increase your emotional intelligence. Why emotional intelligence is important and its direct effects.
Why is emotional intelligence important?
Emotional intelligence is important
We all know that the most successful and content people in life aren’t necessarily the sharpest. You probably know someone who is intellectually brilliant but socially awkward and fails at job or in their personal relationships. Intelligence, or your intelligence quotient (IQ), isn’t enough to attain success in life on its own.
Yes, your IQ can help you get into college, but it’s your emotional intelligence (EQ) that will help you deal with the stress and emotions of final examinations. Both IQ and EQ exist in tandem and work best when they complement one another.
Emotional intelligence is important as it directly affects:
- Your performance at school or work.
High emotional intelligence can assist you in navigating the social difficulties of the job, leading and motivating people, and achieving professional success. In fact, many firms now consider emotional intelligence to be as significant as technical aptitude when evaluating critical job candidates and use EQ testing before hiring.
- Your physical health.
If you can’t control your emotions, it’s likely that you can’t control your stress. This can result in major health issues. Uncontrolled stress elevates blood pressure, inhibits the immune system, boosts the risk of heart attacks and strokes, causes infertility, and accelerates the aging process. Learning to manage stress is the first step in increasing emotional intelligence.
- Your mental health.
Uncontrolled emotions and stress can have a negative impact on your mental health, putting you at risk for anxiety and depression. You’ll find it difficult to create strong connections if you can’t comprehend, accept, or manage your emotions. This, in turn, might make you feel lonely and isolated, exacerbating whatever mental health issues you may have.
- Your relationships.
You’ll be better equipped to express yourself and comprehend how others feel if you understand your emotions and how to control them. This enables you to communicate more effectively and build deeper relationships in both your professional and personal lives.
- Your social intelligence.
Being in touch with your emotions is a social benefit, as it allows you to connect with other people and the world around you. You can identify a friend from an adversary, gauge another person’s interest in you, relieve stress, regulate your nervous system through social dialogue, and feel appreciated and happy if you have social intelligence.
How to build emotional intelligence: the best 4 skills to increase your emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that can be learned at any moment. It’s crucial to realize, though, that there’s a difference between knowing about emotional intelligence and implementing it into your life. Just because you know you should do something doesn’t guarantee you will—especially if you’re stressed, which might overrule your best intentions. In order to maintain emotional awareness, you must learn how to overcome stress in the moment and in your relationships in order to permanently change behavior in ways that stand up under pressure.
The following are the most important abilities for increasing your emotional intelligence and boosting your capacity to control emotions and interact with others:
- Self-management
- Self-awareness
- Social awareness
- Relationship management
Self-management
You’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances. You must be able to use your emotions to make good decisions about your conduct in order to engage your emotional intelligence. You can lose control of your emotions and your capacity to act carefully and appropriately when you are extremely stressed. Consider a period when you were overwhelmed by stress. Was it simple to think clearly and make a sound decision? Most likely not. When you’re stressed out, your ability to think clearly and appropriately judge emotions, both your own and others’, is harmed.
Emotions are crucial pieces of information that teach you about yourself and others, but when we are confronted with stress that forces us out of our comfort zone, we can get overwhelmed and lose control. You can learn to receive painful information without letting it overpower your thinking and self-control if you can manage stress and stay emotionally present. You’ll be able to make decisions that allow you to regulate impulsive impulses and actions, take initiative, stick to commitments, and adjust to changing circumstances.
Self-awareness
You’re aware of your own feelings and how they influence your thoughts and actions. You are aware of your talents and flaws and have self-confidence. Stress management is only the first step toward developing emotional intelligence. Your current emotional experience is most likely a reflection of your early childhood experience, according to attachment research. The quality and consistency of your early childhood emotional experiences frequently determines your ability to handle key feelings like anger, sadness, fear, and joy. If your primary caregiver recognized and respected your emotions as a newborn, it’s likely that your emotions have grown into significant assets in adulthood. If, on the other hand, your emotional experiences as a child were perplexing, scary, or painful, you’ve probably sought to detach yourself from your feelings.
However, knowing how emotion influences your ideas and behaviors requires being able to connect to your emotions—having a moment-to-moment connection with your shifting emotional experience.
Do you have feelings that flow, where you experience one emotion after another as your circumstances change?
Are you experiencing physical feelings in your stomach, throat, or chest as a result of your emotions?
Do you have distinct sensations and emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy, that are expressed in subtle facial expressions?
Can you have passionate feelings that captivate your attention as well as the attention of others?
Do you have a good understanding of your emotions? Do they play a role in your decision-making process?
If you haven’t had any of these emotions before, you may have “shut down” or “turned off” your emotions. You must reconnect with your fundamental emotions, embrace them, and get comfortable with them in order to improve your emotional intelligence and become emotionally healthy. This can be accomplished by practicing mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the act of deliberately focusing one’s attention on the present moment without passing judgment on it. Mindfulness cultivation has its origins in Buddhism, but most religions incorporate some form of similar prayer or meditation. Mindfulness can help you shift your focus from thinking to appreciating the present moment, your bodily and emotional feelings, and gaining a broader perspective on life. Mindfulness helps you to relax and focus while also increasing your self-awareness.
Social awareness
You have empathy. You can understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization. You can use social awareness to detect and analyze the mostly nonverbal signs others use to communicate with you. These clues reveal how others are genuinely feeling, how their emotional state changes over time, and what is truly important to them.
You can read and grasp the power dynamics and shared emotional experiences of a group when they send out similar nonverbal signs. In a nutshell, you’re empathic and socially at ease. Emotional and social awareness benefit from mindfulness. You must acknowledge the role of mindfulness in the social process in order to develop social awareness. When you’re in your own brain, thinking about other things, or simply zoning out on your phone, you can’t pick up on small nonverbal signs. Being socially conscious necessitates being present in the moment. While many of us take pleasure in our ability to multitask, doing so means you’ll lose out on tiny emotional shifts in others that can help you completely comprehend them.
Relationship management
You know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict. Working well with others is a process that begins with emotional awareness and your ability to recognize and understand what other people are experiencing. Once emotional awareness is in play, you can effectively develop additional social/emotional skills that will make your relationships more effective, fruitful, and fulfilling.
Recognize how effective your nonverbal communication is. It’s tough to avoid sending others nonverbal cues about your thoughts and feelings. The numerous muscles in the face, particularly those around the eyes, nose, lips, and forehead, assist you in both expressing and reading other people’s emotional intent without using words. Others will not disregard the emotional side of your brain if you dismiss its messages. Recognizing the nonverbal messages you convey to others might help you improve your relationships significantly.
To relieve stress, use humour and play. Humour, laughter, and play are all natural stress relievers. They lighten your load and assist you in keeping things in perspective. Laughter helps to regulate your nervous system, reducing stress, calming you down, sharpening your thinking, and increasing empathy.
Learn to look at disputes as an opportunity to get to know others better. In human interactions, conflict and disagreement are unavoidable. At any given time, two persons cannot possibly have the same requirements, attitudes, or expectations. That, however, does not have to be a bad thing. People’s trust can be strengthened by resolving disputes in a healthy, constructive manner. Conflict creates freedom, creativity, and safety in relationships when it is not regarded as threatening or punishing.
Conclusion
As we have talked about what is emotional intelligence, how to build emotional intelligence or the 4 key skills to increase your emotional intelligence. Why emotional intelligence is important and its direct effects.
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