SIMPLE STEPS TO IMPROVE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
“THERE IS AN OLD-FASHIONED WORD FOR THE BODY OF SKILLS THAT EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE REPRESENTS CHARACTER”
Recent scientific research has showed that people’s emotional baseline is set within the first few years of life. Unless they experience a major life change, most people will never feel significantly higher or lower than they learned to be during this time.
Why do we feel what we feel?
I was always criticised about my feelings and my emotions, and I always heard that from people around me “you are too emotional” or “you feel too much”, probably happened to you too. But let me tell you one thing, emotions are good, emotions represent life, love, passion, caring and most importantly represent your character as a human being, represents you as a unique person on this planet. We are all different in this world, and we always be but one thing we have in common… our soul and our ‘good emotions or intentions’. So next time when someone tells you “You feel too much” smile and be proud of yourself, because the more you establish a sense of connection with your emotions, and you are aware and happy about that, the more in control of your life you feel and this way you are becoming more and more emotionally intelligent.
Be aware of how you feel, reflect on it and act accordingly.
LEARNING FROM YOUR EMOTIONS!
‘THERE CAN BE NO KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT EMOTION’.
Arnold Bennet
Our emotions are not sensations that floats around the body, that causing you to feel better or worse at random. Emotions are our subconscious mind that tells us that there is something going on in our life and we need to pay closer attention to.
Most of us have placed a high value of suppressing and ignoring emotional reactions, but this is not just a bad idea it is very dangerous one. Thus, the more we ignore our feelings, the more intense the feelings get, until incidents of anger, depression, frustration, guilt, sadness, illness and so on lead to problems that can no longer be ignored.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OUR EMOTIONS?
THE MESSAGE BEHIND THE EMOTION.
Let’s see the emotional message we receive daily and what they usually mean:
FEAR
What is fear actually?
Fear is the unpleasant primitive human emotion that involves a universal biochemical change in our body and our state (emotion is created by motion) and can take control over us if we live in that emotion for too long. We all have fears, fear of rejection, fear of unknown, fear of love, fear of death and so on but if we always avoid situations that scares us, we might stop doing things that we want or need to do. Exposing yourself to your fears can be an effective way of overcoming this unpleasant emotion.
ANGER
Anger is usually a sigh that one of our rules or boundaries has been violated, either by ourselves or by someone else.
The message is to either take action for what we believe is right or, in some cases, and accept the things we cannot change and move on.
GUILT
Guilt’s message is very simple – don’t do it again and do what needs to be done to put it right!
SADNESS
Is the result of feeling that something is missing in our lives or we lost something in our lives.
The message here is to appreciate what we’ve lost and be grateful for what we have!
FRUSTATION
Frustration is always there when you are not achieving the level of results you believe you should achieve them.
The message is usually to take some time to reflect on your level of commitment to the goal, or your strategy. Ones you have done this you can re-commit yourself and change the strategy, not the goal.
HOW WE CAN IMPROVE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?
The good news here is that we can learn and develop our emotional intelligence by using these strategies:
Observe your reaction to people around you. Look honestly at how you think and interact with other people, do you intend to judge them often? Think about it and put yourself in their place.
Do a self-evaluation, be very honest with yourself, go deep within you, see what’s there. What are your weaknesses? Are you willing to accept that you are not perfect, but you can work on those areas to make yourself a better person?
Take responsibility for your actions. Taking responsibility for your actions involves an active role in problem-solving, rather than waiting, ignoring or avoid the situation and hopping to be resolve on their own.
Empathy. Having empathy is a building block of morality – for people to follow the golden rule. Be kind, help others and show compassion!
“Emotional intelligence, more than any other factor, more than I.Q. or expertise, accounts for 85% to 90% of success …I.Q.is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn’t make you a star!
Emotional intelligence can.”
-Warren G. Bennis-