Remember when you talked to your best friend and realized they were upset about something even though they did not tell you?
It is called emotional intelligence.
A person can understand, use and perceive their emotions for communicating with others.
It aids in stress relief and the development of stronger relationships.
It not only helps the person overcome fears and deal with challenges, but it also helps the person succeed in their academic and work environments.
This high level of achievement in career and personal goals enables the person to connect their feelings and turn their intentions a reality.
This name was born in the 1970s and 1980s from the writings published by psychologists Peter Salovey, Howard Gardner, and John Mayer.
Attributes:
Our emotional intelligence has been classified into four major characteristics:
1. Social awareness: Your empathy helps you understand your needs, concerns, and emotions while taking their emotional cues into account in an organization. It makes the person feel at ease in the presence of others.
2. Self-management: It assists the individual in managing their emotions and controlling their impulse feelings, allowing them to use them healthily while adapting to changes and fulfilling commitments.
3. Self-awareness: It is the ability to recognize your emotions and their impact on your thoughts and behavior while forming your strengths, weaknesses, and confidence.
4. Relationship management: It refers to one’s ability to maintain relationships while communicating with others and inspiring others to do the same. It also aids the individual in conflict resolution and the formation of new relationships while working as part of a team.
Steps to master your emotional skills:
1. Start with identifying your feelings: Begin by naming your emotions and understanding them. Fear, enjoyment, love, shame, and surprise are all possibilities. Although these feelings evolve, recognizing them will allow you to take appropriate action against them. After a while, the sadness may transform into self-pity, grief, and even sorrow. There are over 300 emotions to choose from, so make sure to select the right one.
2. Recognize the intensity and the duration of your feeling: Try to remember how long a specific emotion lingered inside you and how much impact it had. It is distinct from our day-to-day mood. As the emotions stay shorter than our moods, having a clear picture of the impact and duration of your emotion will assist you in locating the emotional disturbance it has caused.
3. Express your feelings: Now that you have identified your emotions, try to examine how your body reacted to each one. This behavioral pattern has a direct impact on your communication, as it determines whether you respond positively or negatively.
4. Control your reaction: When you feel certain negative emotions, start controlling your thoughts and feelings and taking deep breaths. To achieve the desired result, try to manage it positively. It will assist you in gaining control of your emotions and obtaining reasonability over your body. It takes longer than we think to master our emotional responses, so being patient with yourself will benefit you greatly. Start by becoming a good listener and allowing your response time to be longer than usual.
5. Show gratitude: Showing gratitude to others is the most sustainable approach to balancing your emotional behaviors. It will not only assist you in controlling your impulses, but it will also provide you with the strength to develop strong willpower to achieve your goals with proper discipline. It even ensures increased pay in the future.
6. Control your stress: Having a mental health problem is normal because it lasts for a shorter time, but having a mental illness is what distinguishes things. It impacts the social skills of the person while sending out negative nonverbal signals. According to a study conducted by apa.org, approximately 80% of people have been affected by stress issues since the beginning of the pandemic. It demonstrated the desire to manage stress through meditation, exercise, and self-reflection.
Measure your emotional intelligence:
Two major assessments got developed to test and clarify your emotional intelligence: The self-report test and ability test.
Self-report test: The individual can assess their administrative abilities and obtain the appropriate score.
You have to rate your behavior while answering pre-determined questions in such a test.
For example, I frequently believe that I can control my anger in a matter of seconds.
You will have four options: strongly agree, agree, disagree, and somewhat disagree.
The second will be an ability test, which will involve other people to access their skills while responding to a specific situation.
People need to explain their abilities and have a third party rate them in this test.
The two emotional intelligence tests that are needed to be administered by a health professional are:
1. Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI): Based on a dubious self-assessment, this test asks third parties to rate the questions based on their various emotional competencies and abilities. This test assists the individual in recognizing and evaluating emotional abilities as well as understanding the likelihood of becoming a good leader.
2. Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT): Based on Mayer and Salovey emotional intelligence model, the ability test measures four different sections to evaluate the answers. Test takers must answer questions based on their ability to recognize, comprehend, interpret, and manage their emotions.
Habits to improve your emotional intelligence:
Do you know that developing intellectual muscle memory can help you leverage emotions?
It not only helps you communicate betters but will get you to reach your ultimate goal.
1. Start with questioning:
Question yourself everything you get in your mind;
How are you?
What are you interested in doing at this moment?
What are your hobbies and why?
Why do you want to pursue the job you are in?
What makes you different from others?
Why are you working on this new project?
Is your time worth spending on this thing?
Answer each question with because, and write down the first reason that comes to mind on a piece of paper within seconds.
2. Work at your pace:
We are expected to do things as quickly as possible, but this is not always a good idea.
Instead of doing anything else, try to stand still this time.
If something comes up, such as a phone call, email, or an insult, that causes you to feel negative emotions (anger), try to take some time before responding to it.
3. Know the time when to say STOP:
We are not machines and must take breaks from time to time.
It is why, at times, saying STOP is necessary.
If something frustrates you for a while, it prevents you from becoming emotionally drained and quitting immediately.
Then after spending some time without it, think back, do you want to pursue it or not.
4. Do not talk in your mind:
Our emotional intelligence operates at a much faster rate than we realize.
It sometimes works a little better than usual.
Remember when you were having mental debates about the conversation you were about to have with the person?
But you keep thinking about what you will say to the person if they say anything during the ride.
5. Accept the reality:
While sharpening your emotional intelligence, you must train your brain to accept the harsh reality.
Whether it hurts or challenges your emotions, stay honest with yourself and don’t let false imagination take over your mind.
6. Learn to motivate others as well:
Consider helping someone and receiving a thank you message from them. This sense of self-satisfaction and pride in yourself will inspire you to do good while also inspiring others to do the same. Begin by identifying what affects others’ behavior and what instantly triggers their emotions.
7. Rule of 3:
This rule assists the speaker in capturing the attention of their audience and making them listen more intently. It aids the audience in remembering the main message and comprehending the context.
Managing our emotional intelligence can assist us in developing healthier relationships not only with ourselves but also with others. We will be able to get our energy working in a disciplined manner if we learn how to channel our feelings positively.
According to best-selling books, Emotional intelligence is far more essential than having a higher IQ.
Emotional intelligence demonstrates the factors that help a person become smarter while resolving childhood trauma.
Because power without control leads to chaos, you can choose emotional intelligence coaching to deal with it.
