Emotional intelligence refers to how well you can identify, comprehend, and react to your own emotions and those of others around you.
You will come across times when you will have to control your emotions. You may want to either express how you feel or manage others’ feelings.
That is why emotional intelligence, also known as your emotional quotient (EQ), plays an important role in your life. People who have high emotional intelligence know how to relate better with people around them.
So if you want to get along better with your friends, family members, or coworkers, here are 10 ways to help you improve your emotional intelligence.
10 Ways to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence
1. Identify Your Emotions
The first step towards improving your EI is to identify how you feel. When you know how you feel, you will understand how emotions can affect your thoughts and actions. Once you know how you feel, you will respond to situations rather than reacting.
Spend a few minutes every day identifying how you feel. You will notice that you feel happy, angry, sad, or maybe even anxious during different situations throughout the day. For example, you may feel excited when you complete a task.
You may feel annoyed when something doesn’t go your way or nervous when a deadline approaches.
To help you identify your emotions, keep a journal. After your day, journal about everything that happened. Pay attention to any strong emotions you felt during the day and what caused you to feel that way.
The more you practice this, the better you will become at identifying your emotions. You should also practice mindfulness, which can help you recognize your emotions.
Mindfulness means being fully aware of what you are feeling and thinking. Take a few minutes out of your day to meditate and clear your mind. You can also practice deep breathing when you feel your emotions start to surface.
If you practice mindfulness, you will learn how to recognize your emotions as they occur.
Read Also:14 Effective Ways to Truly Heal
2. Practice Self-Awareness
Practicing self-awareness can help you learn more about yourself and your emotional intelligence. By knowing how you feel and why you react to situations the way you do, you can take a few minutes out of your day to practice self-awareness.
Begin by finding some quiet time away from distractions to think about your day. Ask yourself what situations you felt anxious, mad, happy, or calm.
What made you feel that way? Once you know what triggers your emotions, it will be easier for you to understand why you react a certain way.
Ask yourself questions about your day to dive deeper. Once you identify why you felt a certain way, you can begin to pinpoint patterns with your emotions.
After practicing self-awareness for some time, you will begin to notice patterns emerging. Once you know your emotional patterns, you can learn how to better control how you react to certain situations.
Read Also: 15 Natural Ways to Improve Your Memory Today
3. Be Empathetic
Learning how to be empathetic will not only allow you to understand others but help you improve your emotional intelligence. When you are empathetic, you allow others to feel comfortable around you, and you can create a positive atmosphere.
Put yourself in other peoples’ shoes to become more empathetic. Try to see things from their perspective and understand how they feel, think, and why they do the things they do.
Listen to what others have to say. When someone is talking to you, listen to what they are saying. Don’t think about what you are going to say next.
Empathetic people listen to understand, not to reply. By practicing this, you are showing the other person that you care about what they have to say.
Ask questions. You can also ask the people around you questions that make them open up about how they feel. Ask them how certain situations made them feel and what they think about certain topics.
The more you practice being empathetic, you will start to see an improvement in your ability to empathize with others. This will allow you to build better relationships with others.
4. Improve Your Communication Skills
Learning how to better express how you feel is another way to improve your EI. Start by becoming aware of how you communicate your feelings to others.
Speak clearly and concisely when telling others how you feel. This way, you will ensure that you are delivering the message you want to send.
Ask questions. You can also improve your emotional intelligence by asking questions.
When you ask others questions about how they feel, you are showing them that you care. “How do you feel about this?” or “What are your thoughts on that issue?”
Ask others these questions and allow them to open up to you. The more you listen to others and ask them questions about their feelings, you will improve your emotional intelligence.
Learn how to really listen to others. Improve your listening skills by actually listening to what others have to say.
Maintain eye contact with the person that is speaking and nod every now and then to show that you are listening. Don’t interrupt the person while they are speaking.
5. Learn How to Manage Stress
Learning how to control stress can also help you improve your emotional intelligence. When you are stressed out, it can often cause you to feel like you can’t control your emotions.
Take deep breaths. When you find yourself feeling stressed out, take a few deep breaths. Inhale through your nose and count to three.
Hold your breath and then slowly exhale through your mouth. While you are taking deep breaths, try to reconnect with your body.
Once you start to calm your mind, you will learn how to control your emotions.
Exercise regularly. Exercising is another great way to help relieve stress. Any form of exercise can help release happy hormones.
Do something that you love, whether that’s swimming, jogging, biking, or dancing. The more you exercise, the easier it will be to control your emotions when you’re feeling stressed.
Read Also: 10 Effective Ways to Reset Your Mindset
6. Ask For Feedback
One of the best ways to help improve your emotional intelligence is to ask the people around you for feedback. Your friends, family, and teachers can help you better understand how your emotions affect them and how they perceive you.
Ask your friends, family, and teachers for feedback. Don’t be vague when you ask someone for feedback. Tell them what you want feedback on, whether it’s how you communicate or how you react when you’re angry.
“I want to learn how to control my emotions when I’m angry. Can you please give me feedback on how I do?”
Don’t take anything someone says about you personally. Once you receive feedback from someone, take a step back before you respond.
Your emotions will get the best of you if you reply immediately to the feedback that someone gave you. Ask questions so you can better understand what they are trying to tell you.
7. Set Goals
Setting goals can also help you improve your EI. When you set goals for yourself, you are forcing yourself to better understand how emotionally intelligent you currently are.
If you want to improve on how you listen to others, you can set a goal to become a better listener. By setting specific goals, you know exactly what you need to work on.
Write your goals down. By writing your goals down on paper, it makes them more real.
You could set goals such as wanting to control your temper when you get angry or wanting to be more empathetic towards others.
Refer back to your goals. Now that you have set goals and written them down, make sure to look over them from time to time.
8. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is when you take the time to become aware of your thoughts, emotions, and feelings you experience throughout the day. By practicing mindfulness, you can improve your EI.
You can practice mindfulness by meditating. Take 5-10 minutes to clear your mind and meditate.
Focus on your breathing as you let all of your thoughts fade away. When you practice mindfulness, you will become aware of your emotions when they happen.
You can also practice mindfulness by being present in the moment. For example, when you are eating a meal, really focus on the food.
Pay attention to how the food tastes, smells, and feels. By practicing mindfulness like this, you will become more aware of your emotions and what you are feeling.
9. Be Patient
Having patience will allow you to control how you react in certain situations. Instead of reacting, you can take a breath and respond.
Think about situations that make you impatient, such as waiting in line or traffic. When you start to feel impatient, take a couple of deep breaths and slow your reaction down.
Remind yourself that things happen that are out of your control. Instead of getting worked up about things that you can’t control, direct that energy into something you can control.
Instead of thinking negatively about being stuck in traffic, think about how you can remain calm and patient.
10. Build Your Resilience
Learning how to build your resilience can also help you better your emotional intelligence. When you have high emotional intelligence, you will have no problem dealing with stressful situations.
Work on building a growth mindset. When something doesn’t go your way, instead of focusing on the negative, learn and grow from what happened.
Practice gratitude. Another way to build your resilience is to practice gratitude.
Take time to think about everything that you have to be grateful for, even if it’s something small.
Save the pin for later
