A lot have been said about emotional intelligence and over the years, people who have worked with me will tell you that I am passionate about the subject. After a lot of reading and researching, as well as practice, I have come up with a list of things that can greatly boost your emotional intelligence.
1. You Must Develop Self-Awareness And Your Emotional Awareness.
Developing self-awareness means that you understand yourself, you know who you are and the values, principles, standards, morals, ethics and ideals that guide your life. Emotional awareness helps to you recognise your emotions and the impact they have on your life and the lives of people around you.
2. You Must Take Responsibility for Your Emotions And Actions
It’s important that you accept your emotions as your own. It is equally important that you understand that you can not blame other people for how you feel. Your emotional response to any given situation is entirely up to you. Ask yourself why in the same exact situation, one person might get angry, another might get frightened, another find it funny, and another might not even notice. There are different things or mental filters that might trigger your response, but whatever that response is, it is yours. How you feel about anything that happens around you is your choice.
3. You Must Appreciate And Be Thankful For What You Have.
Be grateful for what you have even while you continue to pursue what you want. Professor Robert Emmons of the University of California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being.
4. You Must Be Conscious Of Your Strengths And Weaknesses.
Emotional intelligence is not only about understanding emotions; it involves knowing what you’re good at and what you’re terrible at. You should know who pushes your buttons and the situations and people that pushes you to succeed. You must know your strengths and you must know how to lean into them and use them to your full advantage while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back.
5. You Must Understand That What Others Think Of You Is None Of Your Business
Emotionally intelligent people do not let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks affect them, because their self-worth comes from within. Don’t compare yourself to anyone. People will judge you and form opinions about you. And more often than not, they will be wrong. Take people’s opinions with a pinch of salt, because most of the time, they do not have the full story of what you’re going through. Les Brow’s high school teacher put it perfectly when he said, “Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality“.
6. You Must Learn To Give and Expect Nothing In Return.
Building strong relationship are important and generosity is a huge part of relationships. When you give someone something, without expecting anything in return, you leave a very powerful and often lasting impression. Besides, remember that expecting things from people mostly puts you up for disappointments.
7.You Must Become Open To Accept And Embrace Change.
Be flexible and open to change. You ought to know that fear of change is paralysing and a major threat to success and happiness. Learn new things and unlearn some old ones. Look for ways that you can change for the better and always form a plan of action that will help you adapt and adjust smoothly should these changes occur.
8. You Must Practise Empathy.
Empathy is one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they’re going through, the more humane you become. Care about people and show it.
9.You Must Stop Negative Thoughts And Self-Talk.
Your thoughts have the greatest power over your actions and subsequently your person. The way you talk to or about yourself is a direct manifestation of the way you think. Negative thoughts and words bring you negative result and positive thoughts and words bring positive outcomes. Being emotionally intelligent helps you to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive and more productive outlook in life.
10. You Must Question Your Stories, Even If You Believe Them.
You must acknowledge that there are multiple sides to every coin and multiple ways of looking at any given situation. So, remember to question your theories, your conclusions, and even sometimes your beliefs and not to believe every thing you think.
11. You Must Stop Seeking Perfection.
Emotionally intelligent people understand that perfection doesn’t exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. Don’t make perfection is your goal, because you will fail. And don’t expect perfection from yourself nor others. You will be grossly disappointed.
12.You Must Become Difficult to Offend.
Being emotionally intelligent helps you become self-confident and open-minded, and with this mindset it becomes easy for you to develop a pretty thick skin. Emotional intelligence helps you with self-awareness and once you know who you are, it becomes difficult for anyone to do or say anything that will easily get under your skin. You must understand the difference between humour, insult, and degradation and consequently you will learn to poke fun at yourself and even to allow other people make jokes about you.
13. You Must Learn to Forgive And Not Hold Grudges.
Researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto grudges directly produces stress which in turn contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. It is also said that not forgiving someone is akin to drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Emotional intelligence helps you to understand that when you forgive someone or even yourself and let go of a grudge, it not only makes you feel better, but it can also improve your health.
14. You Must Learn From and Let Go of Mistakes.
Your level of emotional intelligence will help you to find the balance between letting go of mistakes, without forgetting them. You are able to learn from failures. You must be able to transform failures into nuggets of improvement. This will help you to get up and keep going no matter how many times you fail. Remember that dwelling too long on your mistakes makes you anxious and stagnant, while forgetting about them completely makes you bound to repeat them.
15. You Must Know How to Say No (to Yourself and Others).
Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Emotional intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control and saying no is considered a major self-control challenge for many people. You must master the very necessary and fine art of saying no.
16. You Must Understand That Emotions Are Temporal.
Emotional Intelligence reminds you that emotions are fleeting and temporal and helps you never to make permanent decisions based on your emotions. You must relax and meditate and reflect before you make any decision that might affect your life or the lives of others. Never be hasty in your response in the heat of any emotion.
Let me leave you with this article by the lovely Alexandra Kleinichen, titled “See the beauty around you”. Indeed there is beauty around you, you only know how to see.
These are a summary of some of the most important tips to boost emotional intelligence that have worked for me and my clients. What are yours?
