Improving Your Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to understand your emotional states and the emotional states of others. EQ can help reduce stress and anxiety while also improving your interpersonal relationships and communication. Individuals with a high EQ tend to have more life satisfaction overall. This is because EQ is a vital skill for de-escalating negative dynamics and reducing conflict. EQ also helps people understand their as well as others’ challenges and the roles perceptions and specific actions play in challenges. De-escalation is a powerful tool especially when it is embedded in understanding and compassion. De-escalation is the ability to calm and soothe the self and others. Improving your EQ will improve your ability to de-escalate.

The four domains of EQ are self-awareness, self-management, awareness of others, and relationship awareness. Self-awareness is the ability to understand how your emotions impact your perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Self-management is the ability to explore your emotions and reduce how your emotions impact your behavior. Awareness of others is the ability to turn the insight you have into your emotional states to understand how emotions impact the behavior of others. Relationship awareness is the ability to understand the different levels of intimacy from acquaintance to romantic partner and the role emotion plays in those dynamics. Managing how much of your emotions and the emotions of others impact dynamics is a central part of EQ and the ability to de-escalate.

Now that we have a clear understanding of the value and attributes of EQ, we can focus on improving our EQ. It begins with sitting with your own emotions. Right now, in this moment, how are you feeling? Why are you feeling the way you are feeling? At the end of each day, ask yourself, “How do I feel?” Then ask yourself, “Why do I feel this way?” The major challenge of this is to not include anyone else but yourself. For example, if you have a negative interaction with a co-worker, what about your behavior contributed to the negativity in the dynamic? This is not the same as blaming yourself but rather a process of understanding the power you are giving others because of a negative emotional trigger. The same can be said of arguments with loved ones. How we react to emotional triggers is within our control. Once we can see how our emotions impact our behaviors, then we are on the path to raising our EQ. Understanding of self provides insights into others. What are their motivations? What are the emotions behind your motivation and their motivation? Understanding how emotion and motivation connect furthers our ability to harness our emotions and better understand others, which then allows us to de-escalate emotional situations.