Do you sometimes feel guilty for saying things you don’t mean, or flying off the handle for no reason? Many of us can relate to this emotional intensity of our behavior, which in most cases, doesn’t match the situation at hand, and we tend to overreact.
Do you find yourself:
- Lashing out at those you love?
- Thinking the worst about people or situations?
- Experiencing withdrawal symptoms when emotions are running high
- Regretting the things you say in the heat of the moment
- Having to apologise to others for your anger, actions, or words?
This is when emotional intelligence comes in.
Emotional intelligence (EQ or EI) measures our ability to perceive our own emotions, and the emotions of others, and to manage them in a productive and healthy way.
According to the psychologist, Daniel Goleman defines emotional intelligence as being made up of 5 key areas namely, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.
Consider for a moment why EQ has become so important in the workplace and in our personal lives and there are statistics to prove it:
- EQ is responsible for 58% of professional success, regardless of the industry or job category.it is the strongest predictor of performance, and it serves as a foundation for other critical soft skills such as communication skills, empathy, time management, curiosity, customer service and more.
- 90% of top performers score high on EQ
- People with high EQ earn, on average, $29k more annually than those with low EQ.
(LinkedIn stats- Joanna Trotta -2018)
Fortunately, EQ can be improved and developed over time, and below are 5 steps you can take to increase your emotional intelligence.
- Identify what you’re really feeling.
To truly identify this, requires you to dig deep and ask yourself what you’re really feeling. When we pay attention to how we’re feeling, we learn to trust our emotions and become more adept at managing them. Consider practicing mindfulness to gain a better perspective on your feelings. This will help you to manage negative emotions and harness positive ones.
As you develop an awareness of your feelings, you are better able to pay closer attention to your self-talk and in your communication with others. This will help you to become more mindful of the words you use, and become more empathetic toward others, strengthen relationships, and build new ones.
- Embrace self-awareness
Getting to know yourself better is another way to increase your emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is the foundation of personal growth and success in life. It is the “keystone” of emotional intelligence. By being more self-aware, helps you to improve skills by recognizing what you do well and what you need to improve. It helps to raise your happiness levels, by aligning your motivators with your actions. It also helps you to strengthen work and personal relationships and build on your social skills by understanding and managing your emotions.
- Accept and appreciate your emotions
Developing and increasing your emotional intelligence doesn’t have to be at the expense of your feelings. Be honest with your feelings, they are there to support you. by validating your own feelings, you are better able to validate the feelings of others, which is a key component of practicing empathy. The more you practice at paying attention to your feelings and behavior, the more you will start to notice different answers coming through. It is also helpful to begin to observe your reactions to situations that present themselves throughout your day, to help you regulate your emotions better.
- Learn how to identify your motivators
People with high levels of emotional intelligence are usually highly motivated. They focus more on their long-term goals and seeing the bigger picture, rather than solely striving for immediate results. Knowing what their primary motivators are, gives them a sense of direction and purpose.
Knowing what your motivators are, is not only important for increasing your emotional intelligence, but also for helping you identify what your passion and purpose in life are. This helps you set realistic goals, knowing that you are following your passion and purpose.
At the end of this blog, there is a link you can access to identify your primary motivators in life.
- Practice responsiveness and less reactiveness
Responsiveness involves a more conscious process by being aware of how you are feeling in the moment, then deciding how you want to behave. Consider, for example, someone at work keeps interrupting you while you are focused on your work. You are feeling extremely irritated. Explain to the person how you feel, why this is not a good time to be interrupting you, and when would be a better time to approach you.
Reactiveness involves an unconscious process where we experience an emotional trigger, resulting in an unconscious behavior in a way that expresses or relieves that emotional trigger. Consider the same example above. Here, you will not explain to the person how you feel, or why it is not a good time to interrupt you. Instead, you snap at the person who interrupted you and may say things that you later regret.
Final word…
Developing your emotional intelligence is a lifelong process and not something you will develop overnight.
If increasing your emotional intelligence is important to you (and it should be), it is important to understand your starting point.
You can cut out the guesswork by completing an in-depth EQ self-assessment on its own, or you can complete a combined assessment on EQ and identify your primary motivators.
The benefits of completing both will give a much deeper and unbiased analysis of where you’re at with your emotional intelligence, where you’re strong, what the gaps are, and what you can do to improve your emotional intelligence.
As motivation is a fundamental characteristic of emotional intelligence, identifying what really motivates you, will give you more insight into your future career endeavors and whether what you are currently doing, aligns with your primary motivators.
Consider taking up this offer by contacting Harry at …
harry.nathoo@keyactlearn.com
