How to Develop Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to harness your emotions and use them to make your life better. Connecting to your feelings allows you to handle stress and communicate effectively with others, two skills that enhance your life both personally and professionally. Unlike IQ, which remains constant throughout life, EQ can be developed and honed over time. See Step 1 for how to develop emotional intelligence using techniques you can try right away.

Table of Contents

Harnessing Your Emotions

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Record your emotional reactions to the events of the day. It’s easy to let go of our feelings about the day’s experience for the next day. But taking the time to acknowledge how you feel about experiences is essential to improving EQ. If you ignore how you feel, you are missing out on important information that has a big impact on how you think and behave. Start paying attention to your feelings and connect them to your experiences. ^{[1] X Trusted Source HelpGuide Go to source}

For example, you are at work and you are interrupted during a meeting. What emotions will arise when this happens? On the other hand, how does it feel to be praised for a job well done? Start practicing naming emotions like sadness, shame, joy, satisfaction, or any other feeling that will give your EQ an instant boost.
Practice tapping into your emotions at certain times of the day. What is your first feeling when you wake up? Last feeling before going to bed?

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Pay attention to the body. Instead of ignoring physical manifestations of emotions, start listening to them. Our minds and bodies are not separate; They have a pretty deep interaction. You can increase your EQ by learning how your body’s signals lead you to the emotions you’re feeling. ^{[2] X Research Source} Example:

Stress can feel like an abdominal spasm, chest tightness, or shortness of breath.
Sadness can be like waking up with heavy limbs that can’t be lifted.
Joy or pleasure can be like butterflies, stomach, heart palpitations or increased energy.

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Observe how emotions and behavior are linked. When you feel strong emotions, how do you react? Be aware of your instinctive reflexes to everyday situations, instead of mindlessly reacting. The more you understand what triggers your impulses, the higher your EQ will be, and you’ll be able to use what you know to really change your behavior in the future. Here are some examples of behaviors and what’s hidden behind them:

Feeling embarrassed or insecure can cause you to withdraw from the conversation and disconnect.
Feeling angry can cause you to raise your voice or walk away angrily.
Feeling overwhelmed can make you panic and stop knowing what you’re doing, or burst into tears.

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Avoid judging your own feelings. All emotions you have are valid, even negative ones. If you judge your emotions, you inhibit your ability to feel fully, making it more difficult to use your emotions in a positive way. Think of it like this: every emotion you have is a useful piece of information related to something happening in your world. Without this information, you won’t know how to react adequately. That’s why the ability to feel emotions is a form of intelligence.

It can be difficult at first, but practice letting negative emotions surface and linking it to what’s happening. For example, if you feel bitter and jealous, what is that emotion telling you about the situation?
Experience the full range of positive emotions. Connect joy or satisfaction to your surroundings so you can learn how to feel it more often.

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Pay attention to the mechanics of your emotions. This is a way to learn a lot about your own feelings and how they relate to your experiences. When you have strong feelings, ask yourself when was the last time you felt this way. What happened before, during and after?

When you see the mechanism, you can better control your behavior. Observe how you have handled a certain situation before, and how you would like to handle it next time.
Take note of your emotional reactions, or how you feel from day to day, so you can see clearly how you tend to react.

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Practice deciding how to behave. You can’t control your emotions, but you can decide how to react to them. If you have a problem with criticizing in anger or shutting yourself out when hurt, think about how you’d respond instead. Instead of letting your emotions take over, decide how you will react the next time your feelings become intense.

When something negative happens in your life, take a moment to feel your emotions. Some people describe having a wave of sadness or anger overwhelm them. Once this wave is over, decide how you want to behave. Decide to talk to your feelings instead of suppressing them, or get up and try instead of giving up.
Don’t look for escape habits. It is not easy to allow bad feelings to fully surface, and many people want to drown them out by drinking like a sink, watching too much TV, or turning to habits that numb the pain. When you do this enough, your EQ will suffer.

Connect with Others

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Be open and sociable. Being open and sociable go hand in hand in emotional intelligence. A narrow mind is generally a sign of low EQ. As your mind expands through understanding and introspection, it becomes easier to resolve conflicts calmly and decisively. You will find yourself socially conscious and new possibilities will open up to you. To reinforce this element of EQ, try:

Listen to debates on TV or the radio. Consider both sides of the argument, and look for subtleties that require further scrutiny.
When someone doesn’t respond emotionally like you do, consider why, and try to see it from their point of view.

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Improve empathy skills. Empathy means being able to recognize how others are feeling, and to share their feelings with them. ^{[3] X Research Source} Being an active listener and really paying attention to what people are saying can help you get a better sense of how they are feeling. When you’re able to use that information to aid decision-making and improve your relationships, that’s a sign of emotional intelligence.

To improve your ability to empathize, put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Think about how you would feel if you were in their situation. Actively visualize what their experience is like and what support or concern might help ease their pain.
When you see someone having strong emotions, ask yourself, “How would I react in the same situation?”
Be really interested in what people are saying, so you can react sensitively. Instead of letting your thoughts drift, ask questions and summarize what they’re saying to make sure you’re in the conversation.

Applying EQ in Reality

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See where you need to improve. ^{[5] X Research Source} Intellectual ability is important in life, but emotional intelligence is just as important. High emotional intelligence can lead to better relationships and career opportunities. There are four core elements of emotional intelligence that can help you lead a balanced life. Read it carefully and decide where you should improve, then take steps to practice those skills: ^{[6] X Trusted Source HelpGuide Go to source}

Self-awareness: The ability to recognize one’s own true emotions and understand their origins. Self-awareness means knowing your strengths and limitations.
Self-control: The ability to delay gratification, balance your own needs with those of others, take the initiative to create, and distance yourself from impulsiveness. Self-management means being able to face change and stay committed.
Social awareness: The ability to be in tune with the emotions and concerns of others, as well as the ability to perceive and adapt to social cues. Social awareness means being able to see the powerful dynamics present in any group or organizational setting.
Relationship Management: The ability to get along with others, handle conflict, inspire and influence people, and communicate clearly.

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Lower your stress levels by increasing your EQ. Stress is a general term for feeling overwhelmed by a variety of emotions. Life is full of difficult situations from relationship breakdowns to job loss. In between are a host of stressors that can make any everyday problem more challenging than it really is. If you are under a lot of stress, it will be difficult to behave the way you want. Having a good plan for stress relief will improve all aspects of your EQ.

Identify the source of your stress, and what can help relieve it. Make a list of effective stress relievers, like hanging out with friends or going for a walk in the park, and apply them.
Get support if you need it. If your stress is too overwhelming to deal with alone, seek help from a therapist or psychologist who can give you the tools to deal with it (and help you increase your EQ in your life). this progress).

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Become happier at home and at work. ^{[7] X Research Source} When you’re optimistic, it’s easier to see beauty in life and in everyday things and spread that feeling around. Optimism leads to emotional fulfillment and greater opportunities – people want to be around an optimist and this attracts them to you, with all the opportunities that being more connected brings. again.

Negativity causes people to focus only on the possibilities of going wrong without building resilience.
People with high EQ tend to use humor and fun to make themselves and others feel safer and happier. Use laughter to get through tough times.

Advice

Don’t despair – always remember that emotional intelligence can be improved, no matter how low or high, through persistent effort and a willingness to open up and change.
If you have a high EQ, consider jobs that require frequent interaction with people, as well as jobs that involve contacting and connecting with others.
Emotional intelligence is more than just controlling how you feel. It’s also about controlling yourself.
Some things need to be analyzed in more detail than others.

Warning

Having a high IQ does not guarantee a high EQ.
Open-mindedness doesn’t mean as high as ideas like bigotry, persecution or genocide with sane ideas. It means understanding why someone is so afraid of a group of people that it is necessary to try to get rid of them.

Steps

Harnessing Your Emotions

Connect with Others

Applying EQ in Reality

Advice

Warning

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