What And Why
Emotional Intelligence (EI), also known as Emotional Quotient (EQ), is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions as well as those of others. It’s like having an emotional compass that guides your interactions and decisions. Famous author Daniel Goleman believes that our current view of intelligence is too narrow, ignoring important abilities of our brains on how well we can do in life.
Let’s understand how we can use our emotions to reach our goals without being overwhelmed by them:
- Enhanced Relationships: EI helps you understand and manage emotions in yourself and others. This leads to better communication, empathy, and conflict resolution.
- Health and Well-being: High EI is associated with reduced stress, anxiety, and depression. When you handle emotions effectively, your overall health improves
- Professional Success: EI predicts success in the workplace. It influences leadership abilities, teamwork, and adaptability.
- Personal Satisfaction: When you’re emotionally aware and resilient, you experience greater life satisfaction. You navigate challenges with grace and maintain a positive outlook.
- Decision-Making: EI guides your choices. By balancing emotions and rational thinking, you make informed decisions rather than impulsive ones
- Conflict Resolution: EI equips you to handle disagreements constructively. You find win-win solutions and maintain harmony
4 Core Elements Of Ei
Self Awarness
Understand your emotions, their triggers, and how they impact your behavior. It’s like tuning in to your emotional radio station.
Self Regulation
Instead of being a slave to your emotions, take charge. Pause, reflect, and choose how to respond. Imagine it as emotional juggling.
Self Motivation
Stay focused on your goals even when emotions run high. Think of it as emotional fuel for your journey.
Social Awareness
Empathy is the heart of social awareness. Understand what others feel and act on it. Picture it as emotional radar.
How Do I Improve My Eq
Amongst the many proven theories and studies, 3 given below are the most popular and successful ones. Emotional Intelligence unlike other skills can be learnt with practice and yield quick results in personal as well as professional growth:
- The Ventilation Fallacy- Venting when you are angry prolongs mood rather than ending it. Example - A driver was yelling at a man crossing the road to move out of the way. The man started abusing, and the driver yelled back at him while bypassing. When asked the reason, he says, "you got to yell back and vent the anger" There are popular studies which claim that venting your anger doesn't make you feel better instead it prolongs and amplifiers the anger. Don't be confused though. Venting when you are sad can help validate your feelings, but it isn't when you are angry. So, what can we do to control anger:
- The Artful Critique - How to criticize the right way: It determines how satisfied are people working around you. Telling someone directly" You are screwing up" is a very deliberate, harsh, sarcastic and angry way which will leave them feeling helpless and angry. Instead, if we deliver feedback in a way which shows them what's wrong and how can that be done better, gives them a chance to make things right and learn the right way to do things for the next time. For Example- " The main difficulty in implementing your idea at this stage is that it will take more time to deliver the results I like you to think of more creative ways to reduce the turnaround time to complete the same task in 7 days instead of 10". Remember:
- Emotional Contagion - Setting the emotional tone In a simple experiment, 2 volunteers filled out a checklist about their moods and then sat in front of each other quietly waiting for the experiment host to return to the room. 2 minutes later the host returns and gives them another mood checklist to fill again. One person chosen for the experiment was highly expressive and the other one was flat in expressing himself. The result after 2nd round showed that the mood of the expressive person got transferred to the expressionless person, proving the theory that emotions are contagious and they spread like virus. This is why speakers like Tony Robbins hype up and involve their audience. They show their energy and passion which spreads into their audience like a wildfire. The ability to drive emotional contagions in another person is the heart of influencing people weather it's through speaking, teaching, singing or any other interpersonal communication.