How to Improve Emotional Intelligence
What is emotional intelligence? How to Improve Emotional Intelligence Skills
Emotional intelligence is a term that describes an ability to understand one's feeling and that of others. Emotionally intelligent people have several advantages over those who are unable to manage their emotions and have empathy towards others. They are able to relate better with people. They can adapt easily with their surroundings and cope well with demands at work and in their relationships.
People who have high emotional intelligence make better leaders, parents, spouses and friends. They are able to use both the positive and negative emotions to inspire themselves and others to perform better or reach a desired goal. They trust their gut feelings and make use of their emotions to guide their decisions and influence others to do so.
An emotional intelligence test is normally used to determine a person's emotional quotient or emotional IQ. There are many free online Emotional IQ quiz and test to gauge your emotional quotient. Doing the test or taking the quiz is useful because by answering the questions, you become aware of how you have been responding emotionally to yourself, a person or situation. The result can help you look at where and how you can improve your EI.
Another way to measure your level of EI is to become aware of your behavior and reactions. If you've been berating or criticizing yourself too often, if you are unable to recognize, identify and manage your emotions, your EQ could be below average. If you are always having problems in your relationships, tend to misunderstand other people's feelings and intentions and find it difficult to connect with others, this is enough feedback to show that you may need to work on improving your emotional intelligence.
Yes, you can learn how to improve emotional intelligence even if your emotional quotient is average or slightly above. There are trainings, programs, therapy and self improvement programs to help you do it. An improvement in your EI can help you develop other abilities, recognize your potentials and fully utilize them to help you grow, reach your goals and succeed.
The human emotions are very powerful. They can work for or against a person. And in this life where everywhere you go and whatever you do directly or indirectly involve other people, you must learn to relate. So this makes it necessary to become skillful in managing your own emotions and understand that of others to avoid internal and social conflicts.
Being emotionally intelligent can help you avoid disappointments and reduce your stress. It will help you bounce back quickly from a setback and maintain your optimism.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence No. 1 - Self Awareness
Your thoughts create your emotions. But it's difficult to notice and observe your thoughts because there are too many of them and they change too fast. The best way to notice your thoughts is to become aware of how you feel about yourself, someone or something.
It requires that you pause to recognize and identify your emotions whenever your state of mind or feeling changes. What you do next is ask yourself some questions like, "What am I feeling right now? What brought about this emotion? What is it trying to tell me?"
If you get an answer such as "I am sad," get curious and ask further. "What am I sad about or Am I sad or angry?" The purpose of questioning is to learn to identify and label your emotion and also to quickly change your state of mind and focus of attention. Doing this often enough will make you learn about yourself, help you see the actual problem and build your emotional intelligence.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence No. 2 - Practice Controlling and Managing Your Emotions
When you feel your anger rising, breathe deeply several times. When you feel sad and lonely, take a brisk walk. You can jump, count to ten, make a joke or do anything else to change your physiology or body movements and your thoughts whenever you feel out of sort or overwhelmed. By interrupting your negative related emotions each time you feel it, you will reprogram your mind and set new thinking patterns.
Develop a habit to put aside a time and space each day to do progressive relaxation exercise or other mind-body exercise such as meditation. You should also include doing regular aerobic exercises. These exercises will help you calm down, relax, release stress and manage your emotions.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence No. 3 - Understand People's Feelings
One of the ways to understand other people' feeling is to become observant and curious. Notice what makes them tick? Look at their behaviors and attitudes. How do they react or respond emotionally and physically toward you, things and other people. Use what you notice as feedbacks. Look at the similarities and the differences. Notice the motivation and the triggers. See what words, behavior or actions produce positive results or outcome and what cause confusion and misunderstandings.
Practice not to make judgments. Try to put yourself in a person's shoes. You can achieve that by active listening and learning to mirror a person's physiology which includes matching his posture, breathing, gestures and tone of voice. According to Robert Dilts who is an expert in Modeling with NLP, mirroring is an effective method to develop intuition about a person's internal experience.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence No. 4 - Improve Your Communication Skills
When your emotional intelligence level is high, people enjoy your company and will listen. You will have the ability to positively influence them. You are able to do this by learning to listen attentively when someone talks to you.
Make use of the right words because words affect emotions. Work on improving your nonverbal communication and learn to understand and use body language and nonverbal cues. When you speak or are listening adjust your body and use the appropriate non verbal cues.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence No. 5 - Improve Other Skills
Besides improving your communication skills, work on building your social skills, relationship skills and leadership skills. Developing your ability to motivate, resolve conflicts, build effective teamwork and rapport is a great advantage. Learn also to build your character, develop integrity and self confidence.
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