The Benefits & Dangers Of Emotional Intelligence
You might have heard the term increasingly used in the corporate world, but emotional intelligence can be applied to any situation and environment. To keep a healthy state of mind for both you and the people around you, achieving a certain level of emotional intelligence is extremely helpful. But what exactly does it mean to be emotionally intelligent, and how can you improve your skills in this area?
Learning more about being emotionally intelligent is a great way to improve your personal and professional life. I broke down the basics below!
Am I Emotionally Intelligent?
By asking the question, “Am I emotionally intelligent?” you’re already on your way to improving your emotional intelligence. To improve yourself in any capacity, always first to obtain self-awareness. It doesn’t necessarily matter so much where you are on your journey or the spectrum of emotional intelligence–it matters more that you’re willing to assess yourself honestly and work on making those necessary changes.
Emotional intelligence, also frequently referred to as “EQ,” means that a person has the capacity and will to healthily explore and manage emotions in themselves and apply that skill to others. For example, a manager with lower emotional intelligence might be allowing the troubles in their personal life to alter the way they treat their employees without realizing that the source of this anger stems from their home life, not the “incompetence” of their team. In contrast, an emotionally intelligent manager would be self-aware and work to moderate their emotions with therapeutic and reflective techniques so that they stay conscious and respectful of their employees’ experience at work.
Personality and past experiences play a role in how emotionally intelligent a person is naturally, and no one is perfect. Some people are naturally empathetic and in tune with their emotions, such as highly sensitive people, while others have a habit of repressing emotions and allowing unresolved issues to affect other aspects of their life. No matter where you land on the emotional intelligence spectrum, there is always an opportunity to improve.
Wondering how emotionally intelligent you are? Ask yourself these questions:
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- Do I recognize when and which emotion I feel when I feel it?
- Do I lose my temper quickly or give up easily when I’m frustrated, sad, or angry, or can I effectively calm myself down and react healthily?
- Do people often come to me to talk about their feelings or get advice about complex situations because I’m a good listener who understands?
- Am I aware of which situations cause me to feel certain emotions?
- Do I pay attention to and understand the emotions of those around me?
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Don’t be afraid to be honest with yourself. Understanding where you are at in your emotional intelligence journey will help you take the right steps to move forward.
Why Should I Become More Emotionally Intelligent?
It’s no surprise that emotional hangups can deeply affect our growth in other aspects of our lives. If we have unresolved feelings in our personal life or in our professional life, those feelings can leak into the other and affect our performance and enjoyment. Our own emotions can also get in the way of our relationships with others or cause undue stress and tension. To free ourselves from these obstacles and improve our lives, we will have to do some hard work including addressing those emotions at the source and learning to moderate them or resolve them.
Many people find that becoming more emotionally intelligent has helped them to:
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- Create a more positive environment for themselves and others
- Reduce stress, frustration, and anxiety
- Better handle constructive criticism, adversity, or change
- Learn more about themselves and pursue a life that fits them better
- Improve their social life and make deeper connections
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How can all this be possible? Think about how deeply and strongly emotions drive your daily decisions and actions. Many people think of themselves as fairly rational and reasonable people, but human beings are emotional and social animals as well. Emotions, no matter how repressed or small they are, play a huge role in the trajectory of our lives and our relationships with others.
Encourage Positivity
Learning to moderate your own emotions helps to build a more positive environment. Instead of dealing with an underlying atmosphere of tension, stress, and frustration, an emotionally intelligent person can acknowledge these negative feelings, pinpoint the source, and implement an active resolution or coping techniques to straighten them out and encourage positivity.
Diminish Stress and Anxiety
By learning more about your emotional tendencies, you can recognize when stress, frustration, or anxiety is taking control. Then, you can address the source of those negative feelings and learn that anxiety and stress are normal, but you can react to unfavorable situations more positively. Instead of worrying about the future or possibilities, you can take charge of a situation or become more present in the moment, accepting that anything could happen and anxiety has no benefits–it only negatively affects you.
See Life as a Journey
Every day, we are met with several opportunities to either grow and embrace change or reject growth and change. Everyone is met with adversity, and while each situation is unique, emotional intelligence can always help when dealing with those situations. If you’re responsible for a negative event, you can more readily accept responsibility and work to right the wrong. If you’re not accountable, you can still react positively to help fix the situation instead of getting defensive or angry. When you get constructive criticism, you take it as a rare opportunity to see yourself through the eyes of others and not as an insult. When there’s a fork in the road of your life, you can celebrate a new opportunity for change and adventure rather than allowing fear and stress to engulf you.
Dig Deep into Your True Self
Emotional intelligence allows us to assess our emotions and how they impact our lives successfully. By being reflective and self-aware, we can truly get to know ourselves. Applying this knowledge of ourselves moving forward, we can choose to engulf ourselves in environments, opportunities, and social circles that will help us improve and move forward towards our goals rather than staying stagnant or regressing. You’ll be able to sit down and decide if your career is the right one, if your relationships are benefitting your life, and if you’re taking the necessary steps to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing.
Improve Your Social Life
Finally, improving your emotional intelligence doesn’t just affect how you deal with your own feelings–it also helps you to listen better and empathize with others. Of course, learning to moderate your own feelings and be honest about your emotions will help others to connect with you and feel closer to you. At the same time, you’ll be able to understand your friends and family better and learn how to improve their lives. Suppose you have a social circle or family that experiences a lot of tension. In that case, you’ll also learn how to better predict unfavorable situations that could harm those people and work to resolve them to avoid conflict or stress. Overall, you’ll build your ability to communicate and problem-solve.
What Are the Dangers of Emotional Intelligence?
For the most part, emotional intelligence is an amazing skill and highly recommended for everyone looking to improve themselves and their lives. At the same time, it’s also important to remember that all skills can be used for wrong reasons. People who have high emotional intelligence have an excellent understanding of how emotions affect and drive people, so they can use this knowledge to manipulate others. They’re also very good at self-control, so they might be masterful at hiding their own emotions.
In conclusion, always be wary of others who seem to be incredibly in tune with others’ emotions and make sure they do not have ulterior motives. You might be able to spot a trend of manipulation, and you should steer clear. They could be energy vampires!
REMEMBER!
Emotional intelligence is a journey, and you are a beautiful Living Being filled with light and love, born from stardust. You are unlimited potential in every direction. With a focus on discipline, virtue, and your own goodness, you can become as expanded and liberated as you desire.
Pray for others and the Universe prays for us.
