Are You Emotionally Intelligent?

You might have heard the word Emotional Intelligence (EI) many times and may know the meaning of it. Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. Four dimensions of EI are self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and relationship management. It is mainly used to define interpretation, regulation and application of emotion intelligently. Lately, EI is recognized as one of the key components of success, personally as well as professionally.

EI is important because 1. We use this ability to receive and express emotion in communication; 2. Emotions help us pay attention to what matter most. It is a shortcut for prioritization; 3. We understand others by interpreting emotions to find the meaning and thinking pattern behind them.

An Emotionally Intelligent person must possess the following qualities below:

1.  Clear About Life’s Purpose and Values

It is the first step toward success, finding what you are and what exactly you want. Values are what we are made of. It's defined by an unwritten limitation of ethical perspective that says, “what we can and what we cannot”. It is personally distinctive and significantly influence our choices while making decisions. If you are not so clear about your value system and ethical priorities, then you may face unpleasant consequences at some “point of no return” in life, as you already put lots of your energy and resources in expectations of desirable something.

On the other hand, purpose defines some specific goal you want to achieve for yourself. A life without any goal is like roaming around, reaching nowhere. You are then draining your time and energy, and getting nothing in return. Like every other material those also will end up one day, and you will discover yourself with nothing but emptiness. Purpose and values of your life keep you moving forward on right direction of success you cherish. So, one needs to be really clear about life purposes and values to qualify as emotionally intelligent.

2.  Self-Aware

Self-awareness defines Conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives and desires. In the process of being grownup, we learn to see ourselves through others’ eyes we surrounded before we could discover our own self. If one feels socially accepted as a child, then one is also raised as a confident adult in future. If not so accepted, then feels guilt being failed to be desirable. So as a normal child, one sets his/her primary focus on activities that satisfy various norms related to the society. This is the reason we sometimes need extra effort to know and feel the proper dimensions of our own self. When you are aware of yourself, you can understand your feelings and desires clearly. You are then capable to understand if there is any negativity or distortion is present and you consciously put effort to get them correct if needed. So, one needs to cultivate self-awareness to be Emotionally Intelligent.

3.  Empathy

Empathy is the ability to feel and understand the feelings of others. We human are social animals. We like to share our feelings with other and appreciate others’ company in our good or bad times. We require empathy to build good communication and meaningful relations with other people. It makes us feel satisfied and happy in life. So, one needs to feel Empathically to be an Emotionally Intelligent person.

4.  Positive Focus

In our journey of life, we experience lots of ups and downs with times. Some make satisfies, other disappoints. Depending upon their nature we experience positive or negative emotions toward them. Although, How we remember these events as a lifetime experience, depends on our characteristic attributes and attitudes towards life. It is completely up to you if you are ready to take things negatively or want to move on only with positives leaving rest behind. Bitterness is never worth to carry on. When a chef makes some delicious food he never thinks of his stupid mistakes he did at the starting of his career neither feels sad remembering those unpleasant moments now and then. He only gets greater and richer with time on the basis of his past experience. So, one needs to try to focus one’s attention on positives to become an emotionally intelligent.

5.  Good Listener

Listening is a powerful human quality more than we normally think it is. More we listen, more we know. We know others more accurately, we get relevant information in a smart way, even find unusual opportunity while listening. Moreover, we understand what to say, and what not to say being a good listener. If you are a good listener, you surely will have good relation with some of your friends and relatives, as it’s easy to connect with people who pays attention to what we say. So, one needs to be a good listener to become Emotionally Intelligent.

6.  Stress Resilience

Resilience certifies elasticity of our mind. It basically determines one’s ability to spring back into shape. We all face difficulty on the way of life. Sometimes, we accept things gracefully, sometimes we are forced to get things done. Every time you are doing things against your will, you are holding stress into your mind. And every time you are feeling bad thinking of that stressful situation to happen, you are feeling anxiety. However, good thing is, we all have some individualistic tolerance capacity that points how much stress and anxiety one can bear while performing task normally. Resilience works within the threshold limit. Beyond that limit, we need extra effort to bring back our mind into original shape.  If you are unable to maintain your resilience to act properly, you may face depressive episodes over the time. So, one needs to increase Stress Resilience to recover quickly from difficult situation to qualify as an Emotionally Intelligent person.

7.   Good in Handling People

Everything good or bad that happens in our life is somewhat a consequence of relationship. So it is necessary to maintain good relation that is quite important to you and manage the delicate ones to avoid adversity. Emotional intelligence is not only about being nice to people; it’s also defined as the ability to validly reason with emotions. Emotionally intelligent people value meaningful relations. They keep good company that ensures self-growth and peace of mind. They are good in managing their own emotion, as well as adjusting with other’s emotional vulnerability. They know how to encourage people while maintaining reasonable expectations. So one needs to improve people handling skills to become an Emotionally Intelligent person.

If you think, you lack some of these attributes in your frame of mind, nothing to worry about. Try your best and get the rest. Nothing comes with perfection. Sometimes, we need to modify ourselves to achieve better opportunities, sometimes alter the situation to get fit to be imperfectly perfect. That’s the lesson we are supposed to learn in the school of life. Take Baby steps according to the points mentioned above to improve Emotional Intelligence. These little steps without stopping will make you reach your destination one day.