There is variety of things about a person that determines how successful they will be in life. Although many people usually attribute success to a person’s intellectual prowess, many are starting to see that a person’s emotional intelligence (EQ) is equally important as their intellectual ability (IQ).
What is Emotional Intelligence?
In its simplest sense, emotional intelligence refers to a person’s ability recognise their emotions and that of others. In addition, being able to understand them along, manage and control these emotions in order to bring about positive outcomes.
The ability to recognise your emotions seems pretty simple. We all know how it feels to be happy, sad, angry or other emotions. However, recognising what emotions others are experiencing can become a challenge. People are good at disguising their true feelings, and sometimes what we see is just what they want us to see and not what is genuinely inside. For people with superb EQ, this is much easier since they are capable of understanding another’s body language, facial expressions, and other non-verbal signals.
Knowing how a person feels is different from being able to understand it, since emotions can have different meanings in different situations. It is these differences in meaning that makes it difficult to guess accurately how the other person feels, and often leads us to assume and misinterpret how others really feel.
An important part of emotional intelligence is being able to manage these emotions in a positive way. Some people are guilty of letting their emotions and impulsive behaviours get the best of them, which often leads to undesirable results in the end.
Why Is Emotional Intelligence Important?
The significance of EQ cannot be stressed enough. Since our EQ affects the way we behave and think, it can greatly influence our daily activities and lifestyle.
EQ helps us to better understand ourselves, our feelings, our behaviours, and our interaction with other people. As we develop our EQ, we gain self-awareness and social awareness.
Emotional intelligence can have an effect on different areas of your life. These can include how you behave or the way you interact with others. When you are aware of EQ, you can build your self-awareness when it comes to others. It then becomes easier to understand your strengths and weaknesses when you feel emotional and overwhelmed.
Through gaining awareness and applying this to social situations, you can begin to understand the emotional needs and concerns of others. This can help develop empathy and a better understanding of the society we live in.
EQ is predominantly about how you react to our emotions and those of other people. We can all learn to control our impulses and to think things through before acting in ways that we regret later. EQ also contributes much to how effectively you can relate to people, communicate with them, and handle stressful situations like conflicts in work, school, at home or anywhere else.
All in all, emotional intelligence is crucial when it comes to building happy and healthy relationships with those around you. More importantly, it helps you to become in tune with yourself and your emotions, and assist you to channel these emotions into productive results. Ultimately, having EQ can only help you become more successful and progress further than where you find yourself now.