You can build and strengthen your relationships by investing time to improve your emotional intelligence (EI). Developing EI Core Competencies will enhance your life personally and professionally.
The Road to Resilience: Boosting Emotional Intelligence and Embracing Life's Challenges
Emotional intelligence has become very buzz-worthy! I have written many articles on it, including Emotional Intelligence: What it Means & Why it Matters, where I discuss why emotional intelligence is
"the other kind of smart". It's also the number one predictor of success, both personally and professionally. We all know someone academically brilliant or "book smart." Yet, those same people are socially unskilled.
Emotional intelligence is an individual's ability to recognize, understand, and manage their feelings and those of others. After all, learning how to communicate one's emotions effectively while interpreting and responding to others is critical to success in life. Without a doubt, learning to manage your emotions will make you more successful.
Emotional Intelligence Isn’t Fixed At Birth
Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence or EI is not fixed at birth and is something you can grow and develop.Did you know that learning new skills creates permanent physical changes in the brain? The more we develop our self-awareness by recognizing and understanding our emotions and reactions, the more we build our emotional muscle, enhance our emotional intelligence, and strengthen our Emotional Quotient (EQ).
Four Ways to Strengthen Your Emotional Intelligence
- Start by enhancing your self-management skills through how you control and adapt your emotions, mood, reactions, and responses.
- Begin harnessing your emotions to motivate yourself to take appropriate action, commit, follow through, and work toward achieving your goals. (On the subject of emotions, you will also want to take a look at this post next: A Surprising but Easy Strategy to Reduce Emotional Hijacking)
- Develop empathy by discerning the feelings of others, understanding their emotions, and utilizing that understanding to relate to others more effectively. (Read about developing empathy in this post)
- Build relationships, communicate with others in social situations, lead, negotiate conflict, and work as a team.
Some Interesting Statistics
Emotional intelligence is so critical to success that it accounts for 58% of job performance, making it worth working on. Furthermore, research indicates individuals with high emotional intelligence are ten times more productive than those with low emotional intelligence. No wonder 90% of top performers score high in emotional intelligence!
Strengthening your EI is definitely within your reach, and as I've mentioned, it will positively impact your life.
Leaders, Did You Know?
Leaders, this is for you: take a look at my EI Assessments and Coaching services to learn what makes an emotionally effective leader. Emotionally intelligent leaders employ specific emotional and social skills to impact how they perceive and express themselves, develop and maintain relationships, and cope with everyday challenges. These skills help them get better results faster and with less stress and drama. And you can learn all of these skills in my seven-hour intensive workshops.
Are you seeking more tools and resources to strengthen your emotional intelligence and impact your life? For practical tips to strengthen your EI check out my book, The Power of Emotion.
This article was originally published on July 8, 2017, and has been updated (July 2023).
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