Licensed Professional Counselor
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to recognize, interpret and regulate your own emotions as well as understanding other’s emotions. Emotional intelligence increases personal well being and interpersonal relationships. In fact, its importance lies in the communal nature of humans and our natural drive for connection. Emotions have a way of bringing people together and creating harmful disconnects if misused and abused. This post will discuss the 5 aspects of emotional intelligence and ways to improve your own EQ.
5 Aspects of Emotional Intelligence
Self awareness: Self awareness is the awareness of your emotions, their triggers and their consequences for yourself and others. Someone who is self aware is able to correctly identify their emotions and recognize the relationship between how they feel and how they behave. Someone who is self aware also recognizes their strengths and limitations and how they are perceived by others. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has many techniques to improve your self awareness that include paying attention to thoughts and feelings, and journaling. Mindfulness practices such as meditation can help to bring awareness to your thoughts, feelings and sensations in the body.
Self regulations: Emotional intelligence not only involves awareness of your own emotions and their impacts on you and others, it also involves being able to regulate and manage your emotions. Emotional regulation is not about shutting out and avoiding difficult emotions altogether, it’s about expressing emotions appropriately. People with strong self-regulation skills are flexible and adapt well to changes in their environment. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy promotes skills in distress tolerance, mindfulness and emotional regulation. It’s important to remember and recognize that emotions are always valid but you have a choice on how you respond.
Motivation: People who are emotionally intelligent seek internal rewards rather than external rewards such as money or fame. They find intrinsic motivation in setting goals, taking actions and achieving the goals they’ve set for themselves. Highly motivated people are committed and good at taking initiative. You can improve your motivation by creating SMART goals. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timebound. Making SMART goals helps by ensuring your goals are important to you as well as not too hard to achieve. It also keeps you accountable to the goal and aware of the progress you are making.
Empathy: Empathy is understanding other people’s feelings and seeing things from their point of view. It involves recognizing someone else’s emotional states and understanding why they are experiencing them. Brene Brown has a great video on Youtube about the difference between sympathy and empathy linked here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZBTYViDPlQ) Empathy involves being open and vulnerable as well as receptive and compassionate.
Social skills: Awareness of your own emotions and understanding the emotions of others is only half of emotional intelligence. The other half is knowing what to do with that information in daily interactions and communications. This skill is important in developing meaningful relationships with others. People with high social skills are adaptable to different social situations and able to develop meaningful relationships. Ways to develop your social skills are to practice active listening, ask open ended questions, practice non-verbal communication skills (open body language and eye contact) and generally showing interest in others.
In conclusion, emotional intelligence helps us maintain personal well being and healthy interpersonal relationships. The 5 aspects of emotional intelligence are self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. To learn more, consider Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence.