Man is a social human being, they are born with the abilities to feel, understand, relate and learn morality which distinguishes them from other living organisms on the planet. Emotion is a vital element of our life. Without emotion, neither of us could be what we are today, and neither of us could understand what our feelings, ideas, roles and thoughts are. We all can feel and label our thoughts cognitively, that’s the best boon we have received naturally. Since our childhood, we develop our environment based on our emotions. Initially we emotionally connect to our mother and that marks the beginning of our relationship in this world. We are endowed with feelings and this helps us to understand our necessities for survival. When we start growing we start learning to build relationships around us, develop bonds and understand others around us. The key to such bonds is our emotions, it helps us to decide who we want to connect with and who fits in our social circle.
It also helps us to understand how much of a person is required to be available in our life and how we are supposed to interact with everyone around us. Emotions help us to learn about our fellow beings and their feelings. The emotions of an individual can also be measured and developed and the computed value can help us understand our Emotional Intelligence.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE(EI) is the capacity of an individual to comprehend, utilise, and manage one’s own Intelligence and of others. It is also the ability to use understand others’ emotions and be empathetic.
The famous psychologist Daniel Goleman is known for his works on Emotional intelligence.
He was the first person to emphasize emotional intelligence.
He describes Emotional intelligence as
“Goleman defined EI as the array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance”.
QUALITIES OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:
1)SELF-AWARENESS
Self-awareness is the ability to understand and experience our own emotions.
To be a good and validating person we first need to understand who we are and what we feel about ourselves and how well we know ourselves. These experiences create self-awareness and the awareness helps us to realise what our inner self feels when we encounter stimuli or bare the consequences of any response. Only when we l realise what we feel, we can connect to others and understand what they want. Self-awareness is the key to developing emotional intelligence. Individuals who can understand themselves can vividly understand the other person.
2) SELF-REGULATION.
Self-regulation is the ability to monitor our emotions. When we tend to be aware of our emotions, we learn to regulate them and let them be expressed according to the social situation. We experience both positive and negative emotions but the amount of emotions that have to be expressed is determined by the situation and its requirements, we cannot always express what we feel as it can also affect others’ self-regulation help us to monitor our emotions and control them according to the social context.
3) MOTIVATION
The motivation of an individual determines how much they are driven to their goals and accomplishments and how much they value their rewards. Positive emotions can energize people to accomplish their targets and meet their needs in society. Successful people who have reached greater heights in their lives have high motivation towards their aim.
4) EMPATHY
Empathy is the ability to understand the feelings of others going through any phase of difficulty by experiencing it as our problems.
Empathy is the key to successful relationships as it creates a connection of assurance and trust which is very essential in any bond.
5)SOCIAL SKILLS
Social skills are the ability to listen, interact and develop bonds with other people.
A human being is a social animal and it socialises to survive in society and experience joy. These skills play a vital role in his life, to be able to absorb more about people we need to have sufficient social skills.
IMPORTANCE OF EQ:
Emotional intelligence helps us in many aspects of life. Having a high level of Emotional intelligence helps us to build relationships, communicate effectively, reduce team stress, improve character, evolve, respond to situations effectively, learn more about our fellow beings, and understand each other beyond words.
Emotional intelligence also helps us deal with many conflicting situations and learn to develop coping skills.
TIPS TO IMPROVE EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE:
1)LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF
Learning about yourself requires a lot of patience and time. It’s a process in itself, listen to your inner voice trying to connect to yourself and find what your emotions are trying to convey.
2)INTERACT WITH PEOPLE
Interacting with people helps us a lot to evolve as a person as we come out of our boundaries and try to seek pleasure in somebody else’s happiness. We start believing in others and learning more about them and their behaviours. It also helps us to know more about the world and why different perspectives of people around us about a lot of things which we don’t consider.
3) WATCH YOURSELF
The ability to regulate and manage our emotions should be practised regularly as it helps us to learn to deal with stress-producing situations and move more towards joy-producing situations.
4) BE EMPATHETIC
Being empathetic helps us develop the greatest skill of being a human. We all are here to live together and develop a healthy environment for each one of us and this can be achieved when we consider others’ issues as ours and make them feel like one among us.
5) TRY TO LISTEN MORE
Listening more helps us in learning more and learning helps us to gain experiences life is full of experiences.
When we listen to someone we listen to a part of them that is being spoken from their deepest inner self. This also allows them to learn more about themselves and be aware of who they are and realise things about themselves that they don’t.
6) TRY SEEKING PEACE
Try finding peace wherever you go, because peace is what every human requires. Peace helps us to develop a positive environment
7)SHOW COMPASSION
Being kind is the most important human duty. It takes time to develop the skill of being kind and compassionate towards oneself and others as most of us are not taught to be kind.
Kindness is the purest form of love you can give to yourself and others.
BOOKS ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE.
Books can help us to learn about emotional intelligence and discover many aspects of it that we haven’t recognized.
Books can also lead us to a different path in life and evolve us as a human tremendously.
The most popular books on emotional intelligence are.
- EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – DANIEL GOLEMAN
- EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2.0-TRAVIS BRADBERRY
- WORKING ON EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE -DANIEL GOLEMAN
- THE EQ EDGE -HOWARD E
- THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – JEANNE SEGAL
People with high intelligence are not perfectionists but they have a strong sense of knowledge of individuality, empathy, social skills and adaptability.
Today many companies across the globe seek employers with good Emotional Intelligence as it leads to better performance without any disturbance in the work environment.
The EI can be developed and evolved in proper ways and each one of us must learn to regulate our EI.
