How to Build Emotional Intelligence

Ankit Rathore June 3, 2022 0 Comments

We experience a wide range of emotions in our lives such as being happy, sad, fearful, angry, uncertain, surprised. And these emotions actually regulate our mood and in turn affect our actions and behaviours. Some days we just want to lie down in our beds and not do anything at all, have you ever wondered why? Sometimes it is just not your day. You might want to turn it around, but that will be hard for you because you haven’t studied your emotional patterns, you don’t know the cause and effect of your emotions, you are not emotionally aware or you are not emotionally intelligent. If you don’t know the reasons for your emotions, you can’t control them. Here, in this article we’ll be looking the ways to Build Emotional Intelligence.

Unlike IQ(intelligence quotient), EQ(emotional quotient) can be increased by a large degree. Give yourself 30-40 mins., 5 days a week, for improvement of emotional intelligence. In it you try to be emotionally aware. Introspect and analyze whatever you are feeling and write it down on a piece of paper. People with a lot of IQ sometimes lack EQ. E.g: Bill Clinton, ND Tiwari, Anthony Weiner. Due to which they fall prey to a lot of troubles in their lives which can be easily tackled if you are emotionally intelligent.

Emotional intelligence is the key to both professional and personal success. Being emotionally intelligent bombards us with opportunities and gives us the power to tackle challenges and problems of our lives effectively.

“Anybody can become angry– That is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way– That is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” – Aristotle

The traits of emotionally intelligent people:

Can handle complex situations ingeniously.
Know how to express themselves.
Behave with adroitness and give respect to others and gain it back from them.
Are able to influence people around them.
Get help from others to get their job done smoothly.
Maintain calmness and stay cool.
Recognize their own emotional reactions.
Say the right things at the right time.
Manage self and others while negotiating
Can motivate themselves
Always stay optimistic

Emotional intelligence is the quality that enables us to confront with patience, insight and imagination, the many problems that we face in our affective relationship with ourselves and with other people. The term emotional intelligence may sound odd. It seems like it’s an oxymoron like deafening silence. We are used to referring intelligence as a general quality, without unpicking a particular variety a person might possess – and therefore we don’t tend to highlight the value of a distinctive sort of intelligence which currently does not enjoy the prestige it should. It is emotional intelligence.

Practical Steps to Build Emotional Intelligence:

We often say that someone is clever but has made a mess of their personal lives; or that someone has earned a fortune for himself but is restless and sad; or that he is powerful but intolerant and unimaginative. In all these cases, we are pointing towards a deficit in emotional intelligence of a person.

So, if you want to enjoy the perks of being an emotionally intelligent person, and want to avoid the miseries caused by not being emotionally intelligent, then you should take the actionable steps mentioned.

1. Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness meditation is scientifically proven to alleviate pain and suffering by taking control of emotions. It helps reduce anxiety, depression, stress and nervousness and improves self awareness, awareness of emotions, pain tolerance, impulse control, performance under pressure. It also enriches metacognition, the ability to think about your own thoughts. Vipassana, a type of mindful meditation, teaches you to observe your emotions in the body.

READ: How to Practice Mindfulness [Effective Steps]

2. Write down the emotions

When you feel a very strong emotion, grab a pen and paper and write it down. It develops an emotional vocabulary in you and increases your self awareness of emotions that you feel.

3. Apply CBT(Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

It is a 4 step process to tackle a challenging emotion.

Identify the challenging emotion
Recognize, what thoughts are leading to that emotion? Generally, automatic negative thoughts.
Observe the distortion in your thoughts. It is what causes the challenging emotions. There are 10 commonly known cognitive distortions that cause challenging emotions.
Rationally respond to your distorted thoughts.

4. Change your physiology

Apply this power hack whenever you are feeling depressed, stressed, fearful, nervous or anxious. Stand in a power pose like a superman, occupying a lot of space. You could also go for walking, running. It will shake you out of a mood. Changing your physiology changes your biochemistry. Standing in a powerful pose increases dominance hormones and reduces stress hormones in our body.

5. Do deep breathing exercises

Inhale slowly and deeply then hold it for sometime after it, exhale slowly with your mouth open. It calms your temper and emotional disturbances.

6. Architect a small win

When you feel unmotivated, lazy, lethargic, sad or in a funk, assign yourself a small task and complete it. You will get a sense of completion and victory so that now you are ready to take a bigger challenge

7. Help others in need

Did you know that the mortality rate goes down by 33% if we spend time helping others in need? Helping those who are in need is one of the greatest mind boosters. It also develops a feeling of compassion in you.

8. Do empathy exercises

Try to read people’s emotions by just watching their non-verbal actions and behaviours. It will make you better understand people’s emotions so that you can act accordingly.

9. How not What

When the words from someone seem to conflict with their body language, tonality, gestures, voice; always trust the non-verbals, not the words.

Our technical intelligence is great of course. It has led us to tame nature and conquer this planet. But a wiser, saner future for the human race must depend on a capacity to master and then seductively teach one another, the rudiments of emotional intelligence