How to become emotionally intelligent? This question has gained significant recognition and popularity in recent years. Today, we will learn the different aspects of being emotionally intelligent and how you can develop it.
Emotional intelligence is your ability to recognize, understand, and manage your emotions, as well as the emotions of others. Your relationships impact your health. Also, they play a crucial role in your personal and professional success. These things make emotional intelligence an underrated secret weapon to build strong connections and foster your growth.
In this blog, you will find your answers to “How to become emotionally intelligent?” We will begin with understanding the meaning of emotional intelligence and wave through by learning its different components and how you can apply it in the different aspects of your life.
Emotional Intelligence 101: How to Become Emotionally Intelligent in Life?
Let’s begin by learning the meaning and importance of emotional intelligence in life.
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, assess, and control your and others’ emotions. It carries a range of skills, including self-awareness, empathy, self-regulation, motivation, and social skills.
By learning how to become emotionally intelligent, you are able to understand yourself and others. You become better at navigating social interactions which leads you to build deeper, more meaningful relationships.
The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Building Strong Relationships
The strong and successful relationships in your life are an important pillar of your personal and professional success. With such intricate interconnections in the present world, these relationships have a significant contribution to building your whole life.
Whether it’s in your family or the workplace, the quality of our relationships greatly impacts your overall well-being and satisfaction. Emotional intelligence plays a vital role in building and maintaining these relationships.
With emotional intelligence, you better understand the needs, desires, and emotions of those surrounding you. You communicate effectively, resolve conflicts amicably, and develop trust and rapport with others.
Your awareness of your own emotions affects your social interactions. It affects your empathetic responses and reflects your ability to adapt to different situations. And this ability to connect on an emotional level breeds deeper connections. It builds stronger relationships.
How to Become Emotionally Intelligent? Understanding the five components of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is not a fixed trait of personality. It is not something you’re born with. But with conscious efforts and guided practice, you can develop it in yourself.
Here are five key components that will teach you how to become emotionally intelligent:
1. Become Self-aware
Self-awareness is the foundation of your emotional intelligence. It means you recognize and understand your own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and values. When you are self-aware, you are in tune with your emotions and can accurately assess your impact on others.
You become more self-aware by paying attention to your emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behaviors. Begin to reflect on your strengths and weaknesses, values, and triggers in your every day.
Journaling, mindfulness practices, and seeking feedback from people you trust and rely on can help strengthen your sense of self-awareness.
2. Practice Self-regulation
Self-regulation is your ability to manage and control your emotions, impulses, and behaviors. It means that you stay calm in stressful situations by being adaptable and exhibiting self-discipline. Regulating your emotions makes you respond thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively which leads to better relationship outcomes.
You can practice self-regulation in your daily life. Whenever you are in a challenging situation or have intense emotions, take a pause and breathe before responding. This is something that I practice too. Do not rush toward immediate responses or answers. This will only entangle the problem more instead of solving it.
Some other ways to become better at self-regulation are to cultivate self-discipline by setting clear boundaries and goals for yourself. Engaging in activities that promote relaxation and stress reduction, such as exercise, meditation, or your favorite hobbies.
3. Cultivate a learning mindset
Motivation is a facade. It fades easily. Motivation is a spark of fire that extinguishes before even lighting up. If you want to achieve your goals you have to build a learning and growth mindset. You persevere in the face of your challenges with your emotional intelligence.
When you begin working on yourself and learning how to become emotionally intelligent, you are driven by a genuine desire to succeed. You don’t rely on external rewards or motivation. Your clarity toward your goals fosters resilience and determination in you. All these together contribute to your emotional intelligence.
Emotionally intelligent people are lifelong learners. When you become one, you seek out resources, books, workshops, or courses that can help you expand your horizons and knowledge. You run on self-education. You surround yourself with positive and supportive individuals who can help you grow and provide constructive feedback.
4. Learn to be more Empathetic
Empathy is your ability to understand and feel others’ emotions. Empathetic people analyze a situation by putting themselves in someone else’s shoes and validating their feelings by viewing circumstances from their perspectives. When you empathize with others, you show others that you care and value their experiences. This helps them realize that strengthening your bond with them is important to you.
Being empathetic is an underrated life skill. It widens your mindset and broadens your point of view. It makes people feel seen, heard, and valued. It makes people trust and confide in you.
Cultivating empathy in yourself makes you an active listener. It teaches you to understand the perspectives and emotions of others. You become more emotionally intelligent because you engage in acts of kindness and volunteer for work that develops a sense of compassion and empathy toward others.
5. Work on your Social skills
Social skills comprise a variety of abilities. They include critical thinking, communication skills, persuasion, conflict resolution, and teamwork. Emotionally intelligent people excel in these areas as they improve their skills by implementing them in real-life situations because they gain first-hand experience from them.
People with social skills are capable of giving excellent first impressions, building rapport, resolving conflicts amicably, and organizing collaborations that show their leadership qualities effectively. All these skills prompt your strong relationships.
You can enhance your social skills by being attentive, maintaining eye contact, and practicing effective verbal and non-verbal communication. The more you learn to give and receive constructive feedback the better you become.
Spending your time building these skills will help you to develop your emotional intelligence and practice it more in a better way.
Let’s move ahead and understand how to become emotionally intelligent in your relationships.
How to Become Emotionally Intelligent in a Relationship?
Successful relationships are built with everyday efforts. They require a lot of comprises, mindfulness, and understanding from both people to not just survive but thrive and flourish in the long run.
Emotional intelligence plays a vital role in sustaining your romantic relationships as they require you to connect with your partner on an emotional level. I have been with my partner for 9.5 years and while there have been many, many ups and downs, we have managed to sail through time because we have chosen each other over any other adversity ever.
Thus, here are some tips for being emotionally intelligent in a relationship:
1. Listen Actively
When you listen to your partner actively, you give them your full attention. You maintain eye contact without any interruptions. You don’t jump in between whenever they are trying to share their feelings or explain themselves.
This shows that you’re genuinely interested in their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. It makes them feel valued and heard by you.
More often than not, relationships are not successful because of grand gestures and larger-than-life efforts, they become successful because two people choose to do the groundwork every single day as long as they are here.
2. Validate their Emotions
Even though the present world promotes being emotionally independent, it is inevitable to seek validation from the person you love. It makes you feel secure both mentally and emotionally.
Hence, you must make sincere efforts to understand each other’s emotions and validate each other’s feelings. Don’t dismiss or belittle their emotions just because they don’t make sense to you.
Sometimes this can be the hardest thing to do but being empathetic and validating each other’s feelings is important. It builds trust between you two and strengthens the emotional connection you have with each other.
3. Communicate Effectively
Your partner is the one person with whom your conversations are either the easiest or the most difficult of them all. While easy conversations will strengthen your bond, it is the difficult conversations that will help you to understand each other better. Thus, it is important that you use clear and assertive communication to express your emotions and needs to each other.
Instead of attacking or blaming your partner, you should be respectful to them. Use “I” statements to express how you feel, and be genuinely interested to listen when your partner communicates their thoughts and feelings.
4. Manage Conflicts Constructively
If a couple tells you they never fight, they are not a real couple. Disagreements, fights, and conflicts are an inevitable part of any real relationship. Emotionally intelligent partners approach their conflicts with calmness and a willingness to find a resolution. They don’t hold grudges against each other, they choose to resolve the problem by approaching it with sensible conversations.
Instead of playing the blame game, practice active problem-solving. Know that healthy compromises are important and they deepen your connection. Never bring up each other’s past mistakes in your present conversations. Avoid resorting to personal attacks or defensiveness and approach it with sensitivity.
5. Practice Self care
Taking care of your emotional well-being and maintaining a healthy relationship with yourself is essential to have successful relationships with others. Because you cannot pour from an empty cup, you must take care of yourself first.
Make sure you prioritize self care activities that help you relax, recharge, and manage stress. This will help you to show up as your best self and keep your best foot forward in your relationship. Also, when you feel fulfilled and loved yourself, it radiates and reflects onto your partner because they get that love from you and reciprocate it too.
These were the five simple ways in which you can learn how to become emotionally intelligent in your romantic relationship. Let’s take it forward and understand how students can build and develop their emotional intelligence.
How to Promote Emotional Intelligence in Students?
The importance of emotional intelligence is not limited to your personal relationships. It also plays a significant role in the academic success and overall well-being of students. So, here are some strategies to help you develop emotional intelligence students:
1. Emotion Recognition
Usually, students have a very hard time dealing with their emotions, especially teenagers. It can be very difficult for them to understand their own emotions. Thus, you must teach the students to recognize and label their emotions accurately. Ask them to name their emotions so that they can deal with them with an open mindset. Provide them with a vocabulary to express their feelings and encourage discussions around emotions.
2. Empathy Exercises
Engage students in activities that promote empathy, such as role-playing, group discussions, perspective-taking exercises, or community service projects. Put them in situations and circumstances that make them more empathetic. Make them understand the importance of detaching themselves from their reality and respecting other’s points of view. Encourage them to understand and appreciate different perspectives and experiences.
3. Problem Solving Skills
Practicing problem-solving skills will sharpen your student’s minds and teach them to handle different situations, even when there is no one to guide them. You should teach students problem-solving techniques and encourage them to apply these skills in real-life situations. Instead of running away from difficult times or giving up, help them understand that conflicts and challenges are opportunities for growth and learning. They are meant to teach you important life lessons and should not be ignored or avoided.
4. Emotion Regulation
Along with emotion recognition, students need to learn emotion regulation as well. Students must know the strategies to manage their emotions effectively. You can do that by encouraging deep breathing, mindfulness exercises, or journaling as tools for self-regulation. Make sure you provide them with a safe and supportive environment, both physically and emotionally, to comfortably express and manage their emotions.
5. Social Skills Development
As a teacher or elder, you must create opportunities for students to practice social skills by participating in group projects, teamwork activities, or collaborative learning. Providing them with constructive feedback and guidance will help students to improve their communication and interpersonal skills. All this will altogether improve their perception, mindset, and overall personality.
Learning how to become emotionally intelligent has different spectrums. Let’s move ahead and understand how can parents groom their children to develop emotional intelligence from a young age.
How to Nurture Your Children with Emotional Intelligence?
Even though I am not a parent yet, I am well aware that emotional intelligence begins to develop in childhood. I am an elder sister to my two beautiful cousins who are growing up so fast and as their guardian, I get to be with them more than their parents.
As elders, parents, or guardians, you play a crucial role in nurturing your children with emotional intelligence. Hence, here are some ways to foster it in your children:
1. Emotion Coaching
As parents, you have to be attentive and responsive to your child’s emotions. The onus is on you to help them identify and label their feelings. You must teach them appropriate ways to express their emotions.
For example, my nephew is 10 and he has so many emotions running all the time. There are moments when he’d laugh and laugh in the most adorable ways and the next moment he is all quiet and sad because something bothered him. Sometimes he won’t remember the most recent thing and sometimes he will bring up things from months ago with every single detail. And if those past things have hurt him the outburst just goes out of proportion at times. Hence, I make sure to handle his responses with patience and care without losing my calm.
2. Modeling Emotional Intelligence
Children learn by observing their parents’ behavior. Their surroundings and environment play a very crucial role in molding their understanding of the world.
For example, sometimes my 12-year-old niece imitates me in maintaining a to-do list for the day. She listens to the songs I love and knows my preferences better than me because she spends most of her time with me. So, it becomes my responsibility to be a positive role model for her. As elders, you and I have to be responsible by demonstrating empathy, self-regulation, and effective communication. It is on us to show them how to resolve conflicts peacefully and manage stress.
3. Encourage Emotional Expression
Your children are your legacy to this world. You cannot let them live in fear or ask them to obey you just because you are an elder or parent. Your blood relationship with them doesn’t make you their owner, this ownership should be nurtured with love and tenderness.
You must create a safe and non-judgmental space for your child to express their emotions. Your child should not have to think twice before sharing their feelings. You must encourage them to talk about their feelings and validate their experiences. Instead of dismissing or minimizing their emotions, give them the time and space to talk their heart out.
4. Teach Problem-Solving Skills
As parents or elders, your first instinct is to protect your child from every negativity in the world. But the truth is you are not going to be around them 24/7. There will be times when they will be out in the world dealing with it all alone. Hence, you must guide your child in solving problems and conflicts on their own.
Teach them to identify their needs, brainstorm solutions, and evaluate the consequences of their actions. Educate them on the good, bad, right, and wrong in life. And don’t encourage their wrongdoings just because they are your child. There is a fine line between loving your kid and spoiling them, know the difference and be a good parent.
5. Promote Social Interactions
Don’t keep your child all cocooned from the world. Let them out in the world. Provide opportunities for your child to interact with peers and develop social skills. Stay around and let them get out of their comfort zone and mingle with their peers. Encourage sharing, cooperation, and empathy in their interactions with others.
All these steps will help your child to develop emotional intelligence from the beginning years of their life. This will help them to grow up and become emotionally secure adults who are not afraid of expressing themselves among people.
This takes us to the next aspect of emotional intelligence: your workplace.
The Role of Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
Emotional intelligence is a precious skill in the workplace as it enhances your productivity, collaboration, and overall job satisfaction.
So let’s learn how emotional intelligence can contribute to your success in the workplace:
1. Practice Effective communication
An emotionally intelligent person always communicates effectively. This makes you competent to convey your thoughts and ideas clearly and adapt your communication style to different audiences. This helps people to find you more easygoing and open to conversations in the workplace.
2. Show your Leadership skills
The right use of emotional intelligence makes you an effective leader. Your leadership skills combined with the right touch of emotional intelligence make you an inspiration for your team. Your words fuel people with enthusiasm to learn more and do better. You foster a positive work environment for them.
3. Promote Teamwork and Collaboration
Being emotionally intelligent makes it easy for you to work well in teams. You understand the dynamics of teamwork and collaboration. Because there’s no unhealthy ego, you value diverse perspectives which contributes to a harmonious and productive team environment.
4. Practice Conflict Resolution
Conflicts are part of the workplace. But emotionally intelligent people are skilled at managing and resolving conflicts constructively. This separates you from others because you approach conflicts with empathy to seek win-win solutions and maintain positive relationships with your colleagues without giving space to unnecessary ego clashes.
5. Resilience and Adaptability
Emotional intelligence enhances your resilience and adaptability in the face of challenges and change. The workplace demands them the most. Your emotionally intelligent mindset makes you navigate stressful situations with a calm mind. This helps you to bounce back from setbacks, and embrace new opportunities despite the roadblocks and obstacles.
Emotional Intelligence Exercises and Activities
Since we have been learning and exploring how to become emotionally intelligent throughout this blog. Here are various exercises and activities that can help you develop and strengthen your emotional intelligence.
1. Emotion journaling
You can keep a journal to record and reflect on your emotions throughout the day. Start by writing down the situations that triggered specific emotions and reflect on how you responded. This can help you gain insight into your emotional patterns and become more self-aware.
2. Role-playing
You can engage in role-playing exercises to practice empathy and perspective-taking. You can choose to take turns playing different roles and try to understand the emotions and perspectives of each character. Further, you can also discuss it with your peers to get different points of view and analyze them from different angles.
3. Meditation and Mindfulness
You can practice meditation or mindfulness exercises to cultivate self-regulation and awareness of your emotions. Guided meditations or deep breathing sessions can help you focus on your breath, observe your thoughts and emotions without judgment, and learn to let go of your negative thoughts and emotions.
4. Group Discussions
You can also engage in group discussions or book clubs focused on emotional intelligence. They serve you with a great atmosphere to share your experiences, insights, and challenges with others, and learn from their perspectives without feeling judged.
5. Volunteer for Work
Lastly, you can volunteer for social activities to connect with others and contribute to the community. Gardening, clearing runs, and potluck gatherings are some great ways to do that. They can help you develop empathy, compassion, and a sense of purpose.
Conclusion
More than a skill, emotional intelligence is a tool to build strong relationships, whether in personal or professional settings.
You can harness its power and learn how to become emotionally intelligent through all the different ways we have just discussed above.
Whether you’re in a romantic relationship, working in a team, or nurturing emotional intelligence in children and students, you can apply the principles of emotional intelligence to enrich your interactions and cultivate stronger, more meaningful relationships.
So, harness the power of emotional intelligence and unlock the secret weapon to build solid relationships.
Ad if you found this article helpful, why not start applying the principles of emotional intelligence in your relationships today?
Take a moment to reflect on your emotions, practice active listening, or engage in an empathy-building exercise.
Remember, small steps can lead to significant changes in your life.
I’ll see you soon with a new topic.
Until then,
Stay well and be good.
