Do You Know How to Increase your Emotional Intelligence? Here’s How.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is how we understand why intelligent and even highly educated people often do really, really dumb things in real life. The same way that your general intelligence (IQ) is a measurement of your ability to process information and come to sound decisions, your emotional intelligence (EQ) is your ability to process emotions—both others’ and your own—and come to sound decisions.
Some people have an incredibly high IQ but low EQ. For instance the brain surgeon with the terrible bedside manner. Others have incredibly high EQ but low IQ. For instance the guy who failed out of high school but has a super successful career in hostage negotiation and conflict resolution.
If you want to succeed in both your professional and personal life, emotional intelligence is an incredibly important skill for effective leadership and success. Let’s explore (1) some general strategies (2) practical steps to take and (3) characteristics needed to increase your emotional intelligence.
Strategies to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence starts with your understanding of your own feelings and being able to effectively manage them to achieve your goals. When you can understand and manage yourself, you can begin to learn how to understand the feelings of others and how to influence them. Below are some general strategies to increase your emotional intelligence.
Increase Your Self-Awareness
Great leaders make themselves and their personal improvement a lifelong project. They actively seek out people who will tell them the truth about how they come across to others and areas where they can make improvements. They look for organizations that will accommodate them or spend money on a coach who will provide them with honest feedback. Great leaders recognize that they are a work in progress and are always looking for ways to improve.
Develop Your Listening Skills
Good leaders are always aware of how essential listening skills are for success. They recognize that everyone has the desire to be heard. Not only do you receive more crucial information when you develop your listening skills, but you are better able to connect with others by picking up meanings and messages through nonverbal cues.
Show a Genuine Interest in Others and Building Rapport
Not only do emotionally intelligent people learn the names of everyone that works at their company, but they also make it a point to find out as much about others as possible. They strive to find out what matters to them, whether it is their family, special interests, or hobbies. Showing a personal interest in those around you show others that they are valued as people, rather than just cogs in the machine. Not only are highly emotionally intelligent people good at building rapport, but they also work to maintain the relationships they already have.
Develop Your Ability to Manage Emotions
Developing your ability to manage not only yours but other’s emotions is an important skill to have. Leaders that possess high emotional intelligence can process information and respond only after they’ve thought about the situation. Emotionally intelligent people can pick up the underlying feelings behind the words spoken.
Develop a Strong Sense of Appreciation
Great leaders, with high emotional intelligence, are always appreciative and aware that they have others to thank for them to where they are. One way you can develop more gratitude is to keep a gratitude journal and write down three things you are grateful for every day, to help them maintain a positive attitude and their motivation high throughout the day.
Work on Your Communication Skills
Your communication skills are a vital part of having good emotional intelligence. People who demonstrate high emotional intelligence can effectively listen to others and convey their own thoughts and feelings appropriately. Good communicators listen well to others and make sure that they understand what is being said. This allows them to register and act upon the emotional cues so that they can respond appropriately.
Improve Your Conflict Management Skills
Conflicts and disagreements are a natural part of life and can happen at any time. The art of managing and resolving disputes is a crucial aspect of emotional intelligence and is critical for your success both personally and professionally. Improving your conflict management skills starts by being aware of the importance of diplomacy and tact, and how they can be used to diffuse a situation.
Improve Your Leadership Skills
Your leadership skills are inextricably linked to emotional intelligence. Leaders must be tuned into their own and other’s emotions if they want to be influential. Good leaders tend to have high emotional intelligence because they can articulate a vision and provide support and guidance to their colleagues while holding them accountable for their actions.
Develop Persuasion and Influencing Skills
Persuasion is the art of motivating others and winning them over to your ideas. People who have high emotional intelligence are apt at persuading others to their proposed course of action. They can read the emotional currents of any given situation and fine-tune their response to appeal to everyone involved.
3 Easy Practical Steps to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
If you want to increase your emotional intelligence and become successful in both your personal and professional life, here are three easy steps to practice every day in almost any situation.
Step #1 – Notice
The first step is to simple notice your own emotional state. If you find yourself anxious or tense when you are trying to solve critical issues, the energy you are expending can end up permeating everyone around you and stall the progress that you’re trying to create. These emotions can also end up causing you to make decisions that alleviate your anxiety, but that might not be the best decisions to address the challenges you are facing. To increase your emotional intelligence, you need to take the time to notice how you are being. Approach noticing with curiosity, not judgement. Take stock of how you are feeling at the moment. Noticing your’ way of being’ can help to increase your self-awareness, which is a crucial aspect of emotional intelligence.
Step #2 – Choose
After you’ve successfully noticed how you’re feeling, the next step is to decide how you want to be. However you choose to be, you need to acknowledge that it is your choice. This will help you to manage your emotions and recognize the role your choice plats in boosting your emotional intelligence.
Step #3 – Be
Channel the way of being that you have chosen and become it. If you’ve decided to be peaceful, take the time to calm your mind, slow your breathing, and relax your muscles. If you’ve decided to take action, tap into the energy of anger or other activating emotions. This is the step where you effectively implement the decision you’ve made.
The 3 steps of Notice, Choose & Do are a way for you to start to manage your emotions and improve your emotional intelligence. Practice these steps over and over again until it becomes second nature. This process can help to empower you and build confidence.
5 Qualities You Need to Develop to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
We often make decisions and respond to stimuli based on our feelings. Below are five qualities to focus on developing if you want to increase your emotional intelligence.
Empathy
Empathy is your ability to understand what someone else is experiencing from within their frame of reference. We tend to empathize with others based on the reaction to others. Start by learning how to see situations from someone else’s shoes and then work on your ability to respond accordingly. This will help you to start to treat others in the manner that you wish yourself to be treated by others.
Self-Awareness
If you want to increase your emotional intelligence, then you have to become self-aware and recognize what stimuli you are facing and then preparing yourself for how to manage your reaction and emotions in both a proactive and reactive manner. Self-awareness is how you see yourself and how we think others see us.
Curiosity
When you are curious about the world around you, you tend to be more passionate. When you are more passionate, you are more driven to want to be your best. Having this kind of learning mindset ends up positively affecting other areas in your life, like your relationships.
Analytical Mind
The most emotionally intelligent and resolute individuals are deep thinkers that tend to analyze and process all of the new information that comes their way. They also tend to continue analyzing old information, ways of doing things, and habits to determine if they can find new ways to improve. Having an analytical mind means that you have a healthy appetite for continually improving your mindset and working to better yourself while remaining open to new ideas.
Optimism
If you want to be able to increase the opportunities that are presented to you, improve your relationships, and think clearly, then you need to maintain a positive attitude. Your attitude is one of the only things that is always within your control. If you want to improve your emotional intelligence, then you need to choose to live each day with positivity.
Conclusion
Improving your emotional intelligence isn’t a complicated process but it will require some effort. Take some time to work on the general strategies presented, the 3 daily steps and the five qualities to develop and watch as your emotional intelligence dramatically improves.
Leave us a comment below about ways that you’ve increased your emotional intelligence. We love hearing from you.
P.S. You may also be interested in our related ebook, How to Develop Emotional Intelligence, for sale now in our digital downloads section or visit our YouTube Channel.
