Most people are unaware of what emotional intelligence is or why it is important in our lives.
Emotional intelligence simply refers to our capacity to recognize and regulate our own emotional feelings, as well as the sentiments of others around us. Emotional intelligence is made up of three main skills:
- Emotional awareness, the ability to identify your emotional feelings and name them
- Ability to harness our emotional feelings and apply them into problem-solving, thinking and reasoning
- Ability to manage our emotional feelings, which includes regulating them where necessary and helping the people around us to do the same.
Emotional intelligence, unlike general intelligence, does not have a psychometric test or scale. This is why many people consider emotional intelligence to be an interpersonal skill rather than an objective thing. Despite the negative press, emotional intelligence is also referred to as the emotional quotient.
Several firms have begun to incorporate emotional intelligence exams into their application and interview procedures, mostly because they believe that having a high level of emotional intelligence makes one a better coworker or leader. While some studies have shown a relationship between emotional intelligence and professional success, others have found no association. Because there is no scientifically rigorous scale to evaluate emotional intelligence, it is difficult to effectively test or predict emotional intelligence at home or at work.
So, what does it mean to be emotionally intelligent?
Well, someone who is emotionally intelligent is one who is highly conscious of their emotional states, whether negative – sad, frustrated – or positive – happy and subtle. If you can identify your emotional feelings and manage them effectively irrespective of the situation you are in, then the chances are that you have emotional intelligence. For you to be termed emotionally intelligent, you must demonstrate that you are tuned to the emotions others are experiencing. When you can sense and understand what other people are going through, you become a better friend, parent, partner, or leader. And the good thing is that you can hone these skills easily with the tips we will give you in this article.
That said, when emotional intelligence was first introduced to the masses, it played a role in uniquely filling the missing link: people with average IQ outperform those with a high IQ. It is because of this anomaly that a massive wrench was thrown into what most people assumed that IQ was the only source of success. Now, lots of research studies point to emotional intelligence as a central factor in differentiating between high performers and the rest of the pack. This correlation is so strong that over 90% of the top performers are said to have high emotional intelligence. In other words, emotional intelligence is the intangible thing each one of us has and influences how we behave, handle social complexities, and make decisions to achieve success. Despite the significance EQ has on our lives, the truth is that its intangible nature makes it hard for us to know how much of it we have and what it is that we can do to improve it if we lack it.
So, how then can you tell when you have emotional intelligence?
Robust Emotional Vocabulary
We all experience emotional feelings of different kinds, but the truth is that we don’t handle them the same way. There are only a few people who can accurately identify their emotions as they happen. Research demonstrates that at least 36% of people can identify their emotions as soon as they occur. This is such a huge problem because it means a large number of individuals are unable to label their emotional feelings – hence contributing to misunderstanding. This explains why people end up making irrational decisions and counterproductive behaviors.
When you have a high EQ, you will not only master your emotions but also understand them and use a vast vocabulary of feelings to do that. While there are times when someone says that they feel “bad,” the truth is that emotional intelligence allows one to specifically pinpoint their emotions as either irritable, downtrodden, frustrated, or anxious. In other words, when your word choice is specific, you gain a deeper insight into precisely what you are feeling, its origin, and what you must do to overcome them.
Curiosity about people
It does not matter whether you are an introvert or an extrovert because if you are emotionally intelligent, you will demonstrate curiosity about the people around you. It is through this kind of curiosity that you can demonstrate empathy – a significant gateway to a high EQ. The more you show someone that you care about them and what they are experiencing, the more you will be curious about them.
You embrace change
If you are emotionally intelligent, then you have the flexibility and ability to constantly adapt to change. You will know that fear of change is the reason why you will remain paralyzed and is a major threat to your happiness and success in life. You must look for the change that is lurking around you and then form a plan of action in case these changes happen.
You know your strengths and weaknesses
When you are emotionally intelligent, you will not only understand emotions but also know what you are good at and what you are terrible at. You will know who and what pushes your buttons within your surroundings so that you can position yourself better to achieve success. Having a high emotional intelligence simply means that you can lean on your strengths and leverage them to realize your potential while raising your awareness of your weak points so that they don’t hold you back from reaching your fullest potential.
You are a good judge of character
Did you know that much of emotional intelligence build down to social awareness? This is simply your ability to read people, know what they are all about, and gain a deeper insight into what they are going through. With time, this skill goes a long way in helping you become an exceptional judge of character so that others don’t become a mystery to you. It allows you to know what makes them tick, understand the things that motivate them, and the things they try to hide beneath the surface.
You are hard to offend
Having a strong grasp of who you make it hard for others to get under your skin. If you are emotionally intelligent, you simply are self-confident and have an open mind – the two factors that help you develop a pretty thick skin. The truth is, you can even poke fun on yourself or let other people make jokes about you because you can draw a mental line between humor and degradation.
Letting go of mistakes
If you are emotionally intelligent, then you know better than to ruminate on your past mistakes. You can distance yourself from your undoing without necessarily forgetting them. When you keep your mistakes at a safe distance but handy enough to refer to them when the need arises, you position yourself to future challenges and achieve success.
Well, no one said that this was going to be a walk in the park. The truth is that to walk this tightrope between remembering and ruminating, you must have a refined self-awareness. When you ruminate on your past mistakes, you set yourself up for anxiety and becoming gun shy. On the other hand, forgetting all about your past mistakes makes it easy for you to repeat them again in the future. The key to balancing these is to learn how to transform your failures into nuggets of improvement. This way, you create a tendency to bounce back up each time you fall.
Don’t hold grudges
Did you know that when you hold on to grudges, you activate negative emotions as a stress response? Well, each time you think about an unpleasant past event, the body sets into a fight-or-flight mode as a way of surviving. This forces you to get up to either fight or run away for the hills whenever you are faced with a threat.
The truth is, when the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential for your survival. However, when the threat is something that lies in ancient history, holding on to it will only wreak havoc on your body and negatively affect your health with time. According to research studies at Emory University, findings demonstrate that holding on to grudges tends to elevate our blood pressure and heart disease. In short, when you hold onto a grudge, you are choosing to hold on to stress. And if you are emotionally intelligent, then you know to keep off this tendency at all costs. When you let go of a grudge, it is not a sign of weakness. Instead, it makes you feel better and sets you up for improved health and overall wellbeing.
Neutralizes toxic people
Dealing with difficult people is not only frustrating but also energy draining. With high emotional intelligence, you are in a better position to control your interactions with toxic people by ensuring that you can keep your emotions in check. When you must confront a toxic person, you know the importance of approaching them rationally.
In other words, you can identify your emotions and ensure that your anger of frustrations does not get the best of you into fueling chaos. You also know that the other person has a standpoint and that if you can listen to where they are coming from, you all agree on it common ground and find a lasting solution. Even when things are completely derailing, people with high emotional intelligence can take toxic people with a grain of salt to ensure that they don’t let themselves be brought down.
Don’t seek perfection
Emotionally intelligent people don’t set perfection as a target because they know well that perfection does not exist. The truth is, we are all human, and that fact alone makes us fallible. When you make perfection a goal, then the truth is that you are setting yourself up for a nagging feeling of failure that only makes you want to give up or lower your efforts.
In other words, you end up spending much of your time complaining about your failures and what it is that you could have done differently instead of moving forward. Emotional intelligence allows you to view failure as a lesson to improve yourself without forgetting to celebrate every small achievement you have accomplished so that you can stay motivated to accomplish more in your future.
You disconnect
When you can take regular breaks off the grid, this indicates high emotional intelligence. This is mainly because taking time off to reflect on yourself is one of the best ways to keep off stress and ensure that you have things under control so that you can live in the moment. Making yourself available 24/7 sets you up for constant baggage of stressors.
You must force yourself to go offline from time to time to just breathe and do nothing! When you turn off your gadgets and just focus on yourself, you allow your mind and body to take a break. According to research, taking a break from technology – something as simple as reading emails – can lower stress levels. Through technology, we can constantly communicate and expect that you are available round the clock. This makes it difficult for you to enjoy a stress-free moment away from the busyness in everyday life. When you take breaks, you allow yourself to have a change in your train of thought and relax without worrying about when you will have work drop onto your phone.
Limit caffeine intake
When you are constantly taking caffeine, you trigger the release of adrenaline – a source of the fight-or-flight response. It is this mechanism that makes it easy for on to sidestep rational thinking in favor of something fast for their survival.
Well, one thing you must understand is that this kind of survival mechanism is brilliant if a bear is chasing you. However, this is not something you need when responding to a court of emails. Taking too much caffeine throughout the day keeps your body in a hyper-aroused state of stress constantly such that your emotions begin to overrun your actions. With high emotional intelligence, you know that caffeine is not good for you and avoid allowing it to get the best of you.
Get enough sleep
It is hard to overemphasize the importance of sleep to boosting your emotional intelligence and helping you manage your stress levels. Getting enough sleep every day plays a significant role in ensuring that you give the brain the time it needs to recharge, shuffle through the day’s memories, storing them, and discarding anything that is not good for you. This ensures that once you get up, your brain is not only alert but ready to get set go! People with high emotional intelligence understand that their self-control, memory, and attention are reduced when they are sleep-deprived. Therefore, ensure that you make sleep your top priority, henceforth !
Stop negative self-talk in its tracks
Are you allowing negative self-talk to hold you back from reaching your fullest potential? One thing you must bear in mind is that when you ruminate on negative thoughts, you give away your power to them. The trick is whenever you have negative thoughts come to your mind, ask yourself whether they are facts or not. When you feel as though something always happens or never happens, realize that this is the brain's way of perceiving a threat. Emotionally intelligent people can separate their thoughts from facts so that they can escape the cycle of negativity, gain a new outlook of life, and push forward with optimism and positivity.
Won’t allow anyone limits your joy
Do you let other people’s opinions deprive your sense of pleasure and satisfaction? If you do, then you must realize that you are no longer the master of your happiness. Being emotionally intelligent means that whenever you feel good about something you have done, you will not let anyone’s opinions or remarks take that good feeling away from you. Yes, it may be hard to switch off your reactions to what they say or think of you. However, you don’t have to compare yourself to them. The trick is to take their opinion with a grain of salt. This way, no matter what others think, do or say about you, you allow your self-worth to rise from within you and take control of your thought process and actions.
That said, unlike IQ, you must note that emotional intelligence is malleable. As you train your mind to repeatedly practice new, emotionally intelligent behaviors, this promotes the growth of new pathways that make them into habits. Your brain will start reinforcing the use of these behaviors, their connection to the old and destructive behaviors to die off. Before you know it, you start responding to your environment with emotional intelligence without thinking about it.
Importance of emotional intelligence
There are several benefits that emotional intelligence has to offer – most of which we will discuss in detail in the coming chapters. That said, emotional intelligence plays a key role in leading us on the path to a fulfilled and happy life. This is mainly by offering us a framework through which we can apply standards of intelligence to our emotional responses and understanding these responses to ensure that they are logically consistent with our belief systems.
With the ever-changing workplaces and the body of research, we must master the art of emotional intelligence so that we can work with others cohesively as a team, respond and adapt to change effectively, and manage stress so that we can pursue our business objectives successfully. When you work on improving your emotional intelligence, you set yourself up for personal happiness, professional success, and overall well being.