Improving Your EQ
Emotional intelligence is a combination of several different skills:
Being Aware of Your Emotions
Most people feel many different emotions throughout the day. Some feelings (like
surprise) last just a few seconds. Others may stay longer, creating a mood like happiness
or sadness. Being able to notice and accurately label these everyday feelings is the
most basic of all the EQ skills.
Being aware of
emotions — simply noticing them as we feel them — helps us manage
our own emotions. It also helps us understand how other people feel. But some people
might go through the entire day without really noticing their emotions. Practice recognizing
emotions as you feel them. Label them in your mind (for example, by saying to yourself
"I feel grateful," "I feel frustrated," etc.). Make it a daily habit to be aware of
your emotions.
Understanding How Others Feel and Why
People are naturally designed to try to understand
others. Part of EQ is being able to imagine how other people might feel in certain
situations. It is also about understanding why they feel the way they do.
Being able to imagine what emotions a person is likely to be feeling (even when
you don't actually know) is called empathy. Empathy helps us care
about others and build good friendships and relationships. It guides us on what to
say and how to behave around someone who is feeling strong emotions.
Managing Emotional Reactions
We all get angry. We all have disappointments. Often it's important to express
how you feel. But managing
your reaction means knowing when, where, and how to
express yourself.
When you understand your emotions and know how to manage them, you can use self-control
to hold a reaction if now is not the right time or place to express it. Someone who
has good EQ knows it can damage relationships to react to emotions in a way that's
disrespectful, too intense, too impulsive, or harmful.
Choosing Your Mood
Part of managing emotions is choosing
our moods. Moods are emotional states that last a bit. We have the power to decide
what mood is right for a situation, and then to get into that mood. Choosing the right
mood can help someone get motivated, concentrate on a task, or try again instead of
giving up.
People with good EQ know that moods aren't just things that happen to us. We can
control them by knowing which mood is best for a particular situation and how to get
into that mood.