How exactly does one become more intelligent emotionally?

Emotional intelligence is a large topic ranging from self-knowledge and the ability to handle our emotions to understanding others and managing our relationships with them harmoniously. When we face such a broad topic it is hard to find practical answers and solutions to questions like: What steps we can take to become more intelligent emotionally? How to improve our skills in the domain of emotional intelligence? Where to start?

Emotional intelligence can be trained and learned. This guide aims to simplify the practical steps one can take to increase emotional intelligence. The steps to develop emotional intelligence can be organized in 4 categories : increasing self awareness, increasing the ability to manage emotional behavior, increasing the skills to understand others and developing relational, social skills.

In this post I share with you some of the tips and experiences I’ve learned over the years. By utilizing these steps, you can cultivate and improve your emotional intelligence, moreover you can also increase your chances of professional and personal success. Who wouldn’t want a higher level of emotional intelligence?

In this Guide :

• WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?
• WHAT ARE THE KEY EMOTIONAL SKILLS?
• IS IT POSSIBLE TO IMPROVE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?
• QUICK TIPS
• BUILDING SKILLS IN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
• 4 STEPS
• CLOSING IDEAS

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE?

The concept of emotional intelligence has enjoyed great popularity in recent years, because it includes so much of the important aspects of who we really are, how we learn and develop, how we coexist with others and how we succeed in our professions. Not only do academic studies research the concept of emotional intelligence, but it is a highly popular topic for talk-shows and magazines as well.

Emotional intelligence is about efficiency and improving it adds to living with more ease. If you are new to the topic and you are just getting started with emotional intelligence, it could be benefit you to take a look on A Simple Introduction to Emotional Intelligence – an overview of topics and tips .

THE KEY EMOTIONAL SKILLS

There is a great difference between people when it comes to emotional intelligence. It looks like certain people are naturally gifted in reading and interpreting emotions. Some seem to be more prone to understanding emotions, while others face difficulties as they present less capability in this field.

Emotional intelligence skills seems to be fairly stable over time. We come with certain genetic inheritances and we are all greatly influenced by our early childhood education and experiences. While some are more adapt and have a natural interest and inclination to be emotionally intelligent, this giftedness by itself doesn’t make them masters of the field. Just like any talent, emotional intelligence can and should be trained, learned and practiced. It is also not likely that one would come with great, natural talents in all four aspects of EQ. So even those who do better in some aspects benefit from training their skills in other areas.

The skills that make up emotional intelligence can be learned and trained at any time throughout one’s life. Emotional Intelligence skills may come more naturally to empathetic people, but that isn’t a reason for disappointment for less empathetic people. We can develop and enhance and make up with learning and training what we might lack in talent. Less empathetic people can practice being more self-aware and mindful and too empathic people can learn to set boundaries and can develop more efficient skills to communicate and interact with others.

What are the key skills of emotional intelligence?

Personal skills and competences in emotional intelligence come in many forms. The key skills to develop for a higher EQ are on one hand, the ability to identify your own emotions and the ability to regulate your emotions, and on the other hand the ability to read others emotionally and to be able to engage in mutually beneficial, healthy social interactions with them. There are a lot of others skills that are also related to your emotional intelligence like motivation and empathy, but these 4 are the main aspects, the main pillars to start with.

It is important to know that emotional intelligence stands on four main pillars. Simply put we can imagine it as a table with four legs. If one of the legs is not the same size as the other legs the table will be problematic to use. Such is the case with the skills in emotional intelligence. If one has huge talent and skills in one aspect from the four, and lacks skills in the other three, that will result in problems and imbalances. Having a low EQ or an imbalanced high EQ can both cause a lot of difficulties in your personal and professional relationships.

The four main components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and social skills. This guide is presenting the things you can do to increase emotional intelligence in these 4 categories.

Can You Really Improve Your Emotional Intelligence?

Research ,as of now, confirms that building emotional intelligence is possible. Emotional intelligence can be trained and can be learned. Everyone can change, but developing emotional intelligence is the result of a long-term improvement in ways of thinking, in attitudes and involves changing your habits , so realistically, it cannot be expected to happen without the dedication of time and attention.

4 STEPS OF BUILDING SKILLS IN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

The first step to improving anything is first understanding and seeing thing clearly. So all the emotional intelligence journey starts within your emotional territories. Increasing the sense of understanding who you are is necessary before understanding and improving how you do, how you behave, how you manifest in relationships.

The basics of becoming more skilled in emotional intelligence (EQ) are easy and simple, yet there are no EQ magic pills. There are no magic ways that can get you there in a blink of an eye. These steps usually take time and practice, so do not put too much pressure on yourself. This isn’t about getting a quick fix. It is about you becoming a better person for yourself and others. It’s a process that takes time and patience, but the reward for your hard work is worth it.

There is no such thing as perfect emotional intelligence level. You cannot develop the perfect level of emotional intelligence overnight as many people would like it to be. Emotional intelligence is a combination of skills that help you get along in life and that are continuously changing. The idea is not to become perfect, but to become emotionally balanced and resilient here and now and stay open to evolving. The idea is to develop your skills and abilities that benefit you in the good times and keep you empowered when the roads and talks get rough.

Step 1- Building Emotional Intelligence – Emotional Awareness & Emotional Identity

Emotional awareness is a component of self awareness and it is closely related to emotional intelligence. Some call self-awareness the foundation of emotional intelligence. Recognizing and embracing our emotions and our emotional identity is definitely an important part of the process of improving emotional intelligence.

This area – within the topic of emotional intelligence – focuses on: self-knowledge, realistic self-confidence, accurate sense of strengths and weaknesses and a healthy sense of purpose. you can communicate your emotional states more clearly to others

What to do to improve self-awareness ?

• (Re)Connect with your feelings and your sensory experiences
• Identify what you are feeling – develop emotional literacy
• Embrace your emotions : accept and become comfortable with your emotions
• (Re)Discover your why’s – triggers, purposes and motivations

Developing the skills – MINDFULNESS & SELF-AWARNESS:

• Do Mindfulness and Body Scan Meditation – Breathe and let the emotion come and sit in the spotlight of your attention and awareness, without jumping into problem solving or planning. Just let it be what it is without wanting to solve it.
• Set a timer for various points during the day and when the timer goes off take a minute to tune into your own emotions and reflect on how you feel right now. Disconnect your attention from the OUTSIDE and connect to the INSIDE. Give yourself a minute to grasp what is going on within you.
• Use Emotion wheels and emotion trackers to improve your emotional literacy and your capacity to tune into your own emotions.
• Journaling and recognizing patterns is one of the efficient methods to build your EQ. Spend some time writing down your emotional reactions to day-to-day events.
• Plan and visualize – Emotional intelligence involves understanding how your core beliefs, your core emotions and your aspirations relate to each other.
• Read and learn – Reading personal development books, affirmations, listening to podcasts and on the topic of emotional health and intelligence can give you new perspectives and insights daily.
• Seek counseling and talk to others. Thoughtful communication with friends and health professionals can help you identify, manage, and express your feelings and can improve your overall self-knowledge and emotional intelligence.

When I began my meditation practice and started learning & practicing how to be more self-aware, I was expecting to see tangible results for months. But than I realized that this works differently. You just feel inside that something is changing. You are becoming more resilient, more open and optimistic and you start to sense what true self-empowerment means. Want to know more details about Improving Self- Awareness ?

Read this next : Step 1- Self -Awareness & Emotional Identity – How to build emotional intelligence?

Step 2- Improving emotional intelligence – Emotional wellness and self-empowerment

Emotional wellness is a state of being emotionally healthy. It means that we are having healthy coping mechanisms and we can regulate emotions, we can deal with the intensity of the emotions and we are capable of recovering from negative emotions quickly. We can achieve this by using our self-management and self-regulation skills. Emotional self-regulation means that we can stay in control.

What to do to improve emotional self-regulation?

• Take responsibility for your inner emotional experiences
• Take accountability for your actions and words
• Embrace (self-)discipline as a tool of self-empowerment
• Learn to respond not to react

Developing the skills – EMOTIONAL SELF-REGULATION

• Learn breathing techniques to calm yourself down. Breathwork can help you reduce stress, anxiety, frustration and calm down instead of going into panic attacks. It is very useful to have on your toolbelt such an efficient method for reducing emotional intensity.
• Practice gratitude and feeling satisfied – This practice gives you a strong emotional foundation. The mind is getting used to feeling good and accepts well-being as your normal state instead of stress and anxiety.
• Emotion management and maintenance – take time every day to manage your negative emotions. A problem solving me-time can be useful, especially when you face recurring frustrations, stress and disappointment. Take this time to deal with them logically, consciously focusing for 30 minutes and not think about them for the rest of the day. Otherwise problem programs just run again and again during the day, like a heavy background program slowing down your thinking and performance.
• Snap out of it. Distance yourself from the situation – Stop escalating negative situations. As you realize that a conversation is making you feel bad excuse yourself and leave. Moving your physical body can often help to deal with the emotional chemistry in the body. Go for a brisk walk, go for a run, attend a fitness class or go to the gym.
• Reframe and rethink challenging situation. Learn to influence your emotional state for the better with the help of your words and thoughts. This is more like a regular maintenance work, but in case of past issues that weren’t taken care of in time, it is usually a bigger deal, a more complex task to heal and raise it up emotionally to a better feeling version.
• Use planners and trackers and prioritize – when you are often distracted by your emotions you will find it hard to stay disciplined and reach your goals. Using planners can reduce feelings of anxiety and improve your skills in stress management. However, plan only actions and let yourself visualize results.

Read this next : Emotional wellness and self-empowerment – Improving emotional intelligence

Step 3- Building emotional intelligence – Ego, Empathy and Social Emotional Awareness

Social emotional skills are necessary to build healthy relationships with others. The development of social emotional skills begins at a young age and help us feel empathy and build healthy, realistic view of the world and others. Those who have high levels of social skills are finding their ways easily in all kinds of social circles. They are likely to succeed at the workplace and maintain large social networks.

However, good social skills without self-awareness and self-empowerment are one of the main reason for most unhealthy relationships. Manipulators like bullies, sociopaths and narcissists are having good skills in social interactions. They read body language and recognize personality types like a pro. However their underdeveloped self-awareness, lack of self-honesty fuels their thinking and actions in socially devastating ways. They mix self importance for self-awareness and cause harm to others, because they feel entitled to do so.

What to do to increase social awareness and empathy ?

• Establish a realistic external self-awareness (relationship between Self and Others)
• Improve your skills in recognizing personality types and emotional languages
• Improve your skills in empathy, non-verbal communication & body language
• Be interested. Be receptive to new ideas- new ways of doing things, new perspectives

Developing the skills –Social Emotional Awareness

• Clarify how you view the relationship between Self and Others – This is a typical blind spot for emotionally intelligent people. Those who are good in the social aspects and manipulate easily often tend to be engaged in wishful thinking and overconfidence. Ego plays a huge role in how we perceive and react to different situations.
• Do a personal SWOT Analysis and a Personality Test. Understanding what your real strengths and weaknesses are is key for your development. These tests can kind of give you a realistic feedback without having to ask others for it. You can have a clearer idea how they see you in general.
• Learn when and how to accept and give feedback – Accepting feedback from the wrong people causes a lot of unnecessary emotional pain. Developing a healthy personality image starts with learning not to accept unconstructive feedback from bullying, negative, disillusioned, unsuccessful, painful people. Also learn to accept praise and get credits for your results.
• Practice an objective, realistic appraisal of situations -Objective here is meant as a logical perspective as opposed to an overly emotional outlook. Start viewing adversity as a solvable challenge, not as unbearable, unmanageable problem.
• Look for role models – look for and remember the nice problem-solving. Some people have skills and you can recognize those skills in everyday life. Read the biography of people whom you look up to, who successfully managed to excel in fields that are interesting to you. They are not to be idolized, cause they are not perfect either, it is just that they are really good in some things and you could learn from familiarizing with their perspectives on life, seeing their solutions and experiences.
• Practice Active Listening -Try to focus on what the speaker is saying and show that you’re engaged by paraphrasing and using other non-verbal cues like nodding. By actively listening, it will be easier to connect with others and truly understand their thoughts and feelings.
• Look into the mirror and practice emotion recognition. Imitate an emotional expression like sadness, anger, happiness that is expressed similar over cultures and personalities. We are not the same, but we are very similar in many ways. Recognizing the core emotions and the subtle ones on your own face, can make you become attuned to how others feel. It can be fun to play games with more subtle, complex emotions like envy, contentment, appraisal. Let your body show you how others see you when you are in these emotions.

It’s possible to develop healthier, closer and more satisfying relationships by simply knowing yourself better. Once you know how you are really feeling about others, you will know how and when to communicate your ideas and needs with them. For more details on this you can continue by reading next : Step 3- Ego, Empathy and the Social Emotional Awareness – Building emotional intelligence

Step 4 – Communication Skills and Interpersonal Skills

Social emotional skills are the ones that allow us to make friends, to open up in relationships and to resolve the conflicts we face. Communication skills and relationship skills are the more active, less theoretic parts of the social emotional skills. It is about getting out there, being involved in life, being involved in projects, taking an active part in our community. Socio-emotional competencies enable us to improve cooperation, communication, and behavioral decision-making. These skills can be trained and learned in a variety of ways. People with good communication skills are more likely to manage their interactions with others smoothly and efficiently and be able to succeed in work and personal life.

What to do to increase communication skills and improve interactions with others ?

• Open yourself up. Stay accessible and approachable
• Communicate effectively and stop complaining, criticizing
• Assertiveness skills. Be willing to resolve conflict but set boundaries.
• Collaborative skills. Maintain your Relationships -Social support networks and

Developing the skills – Interpersonal and Communication Skills

• Say no
• Pick Your Battles
• demonstrate assertiveness
• Spend quality time with family, friends,

Final Thoughts

Emotional intelligence is not about being without negative feelings, but rather knowing how to live your life in spite of them.

Want to improve your Emotional Intelligence?  There are some books you might be interested in:

• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman
• Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships by Daniel Goleman

Other resources/ Credits :  What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It), Featured image created by Freepik