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Emotions are an extremely important element of everyone’s everyday life. They help us determine how we feel in a given situation, recognize when we are doing well and analyze why we behave the way we do. In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about emotional intelligence. What is emotional intelligence? Why is it so important in life and is it possible to become more emotionally intelligent?
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional Intelligence (otherwise known as Emotional Quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your emotions in a positive way to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and resolve conflicts. Emotional intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, be successful in school and work, and achieve professional and personal goals. It can also help you turn your intention into action and make informed decisions about what matters most to us.
Emotional intelligence is commonly defined by four main characteristics:
- self management – thanks to this skill, you are able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in a healthy way, take initiative, fulfill obligations and adapt to changing circumstances,
- self-consciousness – you recognize your own emotions and their influence on your thoughts and behavior. You know your strengths and weaknesses and you believe in yourself,
- awareness – that is, you are empathetic. You can understand emotions, needs and concerns of other people, pick up emotional signals, feel good socially and recognize the dynamics of power in a group or organization,
- relationship management – you know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team and manage conflicts.
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Emotional intelligence and cognitive intelligence
EQ is emotional intelligence, which is about identifying emotions in us and others, establishing relationships with others, and communicating about our feelings.
On the other hand, IQ is cognitive intelligence. This is the intelligence that people are generally most familiar with, as it is the type most often referred to when the word “intelligence” is used. It is also the type that is most often measured in tests and estimated from things like grade average.
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Social Intelligence is more closely related to Emotional Intelligence than IQ because both have to do with navigating social or emotional situations, but they are two different types of intelligence, even if they overlap to some extent.
Emotional Intelligence is more related to the present because it is used to identify and manage your emotions in the moment. Social intelligence uses some of the same skills and abilities, but is often focused on the future. It allows you to understand feelings, personality and behavior of yourself and others in order to look for positive results.
Read: An unhealthy diet affects a child’s intelligence
Emotional Intelligence – Why Do We Need It?
Emotional intelligence is what definitely helps us in life. In order to realize how important a function it performs, we must first of all realize that our lives are driven by emotions. We come into contact with them every day, in many different situations in life, and their range is really impressive.
In addition, many emotions are mixed together so that sometimes even very emotionally developed people find it difficult to determine what they are actually feeling. In order for our relationships with other people to be healthy, and to reduce the likelihood of harming others, it is important to develop emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence allows us to mature relationships with others, helps us fight stress and find ourselves in specific situations. It also has a great influence on success in life, both in terms of work and family.
See also: How does polluted air affect our intelligence?
Emotional intelligence – what does it affect?
As we know, it is not the smartest people who are the most successful or the most fulfilled in life. You probably know people who are academically outstanding but are socially inept and unsuccessful at work or in their personal relationships.
Intellectual ability, or an intelligence quotient (IQ) by itself, is not enough to be successful in life. Yes, your IQ can help you get into college, but it is your EQ that will help you deal with stress and emotions during your final exams. IQ and EQ exist in tandem and are most effective when they build up on each other.
Emotional intelligence influences:
- your performance at school or at work – High emotional intelligence can help you deal with social complexity in the workplace, guide and motivate others, and achieve career success. In fact, when it comes to evaluating important job applicants, many companies now rank emotional intelligence as important as technical skills and apply pre-employment EQ testing.
- your physical health — if you can’t manage your emotions, you probably can’t cope with stress as well. This can lead to serious health problems. Uncontrolled stress raises blood pressure, weakens the immune system, increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, contributes to infertility, and accelerates the aging process. The first step to improving your emotional intelligence is learning to cope with stress.
- your mental health Uncontrolled emotions and stress can also affect your mental health, making you vulnerable to anxiety and depression. If you are unable to understand your emotions, feel comfortable with them, or manage them appropriately, you will also have a hard time forming strong relationships. This, in turn, can make you feel lonely and isolated, and exacerbate any mental health issues.
- your relationship – By understanding your emotions and how to control them, you can better express your feelings and understand how others are feeling. This allows you to communicate more effectively and build stronger relationships, both at work and in your personal life,
- your social intelligence – being in tune with your emotions serves a social purpose, connecting you with other people and the world around you. Social intelligence allows you to recognize a friend from an enemy, measure interest in another person, reduce stress, balance your nervous system through social communication, and feel loved and happy.
Emotional intelligence – how to develop it?
Emotional intelligence is not something permanent. Even if we believe that this skill is not particularly developed by us, it is not worth giving up. We can learn emotional intelligence. The main issue is learning to recognize different emotions. It is worth remembering that they are often complex and have many shades.
Not all sadness is the same, and not all anger can be described in a similar way. Although emotions accompany us from childhood, some of them we learn to recognize only in adulthood. From time to time, it is worth asking yourself what exactly do we feel? To develop emotional intelligence, it is worth starting a more mindful life, and it is also a good idea to find some time to rest and think about your behavior and emotions.
It is worth observing the patterns that guide us in everyday situations. Are there situations in our lives in which we are rude and rude to others, even though they have not been at fault with anything? Or maybe someone else behaves like that towards us? The people around us can also be a perfect example of different emotions. Remember, however, that emotional intelligence is also demonstrated by understanding and not being able to judge others.
The skills that make up emotional intelligence can be learned at any time. However, it is important to remember that there is a difference between simply learning about EQ and applying that knowledge to your life. Just because you know you should do something doesn’t mean you will – especially when you are overwhelmed by stress that may exceed your best intentions. In order to permanently change your behavior in a way that can withstand the pressure, you must learn to overcome stress in the moment and in your relationships in order to remain emotionally aware.
Emotional intelligence in the workplace
Only an organization whose members have emotional intelligence can operate with maximum efficiency. Emotional intelligence only increases the success of an organization, no matter how that success is measured. The bottom line is that it is essential to business excellence.
Emotional Intelligence can work wonders for your organization because using it at work will help you understand how people and relationships work. Emotionally intelligent associates will consistently improve in leadership, teamwork, partnership, and vision as they have visibility into their relationships with staff, organizations, directors, customers, competitors, network contacts.
An emotionally intelligent people organization employs employees who are motivated, productive, efficient, effective, rewarded, and liked, and their goals will be more in line with the organization’s agenda. This is because emotional intelligence applies to every human interaction in business. Having a staff with a high average EQ will help with customer service, brainstorming, company presentations, and countless other activities.
Emotional intelligence in the workplace will help you better assess people, understand how relationships develop, understand how our beliefs generate our experiences, and learn to prevent power struggles, negative judgments.
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