Improving your Life & Relationships with Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (also known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to recognize, understand and manage your own emotions in positive ways and to recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others. Emotional intelligence improves our ability to manage stress, communicate effectively, empathize, build stronger relationships, resolve conflict and overcome challenges. In other words, being aware that our emotions drive our behaviours and impact other people and learning how to manage those emotions (and your reactions to others emotions) for a more positive outcome.

One aspect of emotional intelligence is self-awareness, it is quite common for people to disconnect from their emotions which makes it very difficult to recognize them, manage them, understand how they affect your feelings and behaviours and as well as other people.

I have personally done a lot of work around emotional intelligence. I make a point of confronting my feelings head on, identifying them and getting curious. I ask myself questions to get to know and understand myself and my emotional triggers better. This has greatly improved my relationships, my ability to work through difficult emotions and my ability to let things go.

Emotional intelligence is typically used in business for leadership development and team building, but it is an incredibly valuable tool for self & relationship development. The graphic below from The Harvard Business Review sums up the 4 key domains and 12 competencies associated with emotional intelligence:

Based on the competencies above you can see how developing these skills can help you achieve your goals, improve relationships, improve communication skills, effectively work with others/manage others, get to know yourself, manage stress and improve your mindset.

So, where should I start you ask? Great question, I think it is important to get to know yourself and learn to recognizes and manage your own emotions and behaviours first before you can really work on social and relationship management competencies. Here are some tips to get started:

#1) Start by noticing how you feel Practice mindfulness, throughout your day take a few seconds to breathe deeply and check in with yourself. How do you feel in this moment, how is that manifesting physically in your body? Can you identify your emotions? Notice your thoughts? What is going on and how is it affecting you?

#2) Then, notice your behaviours Observe how you act when you’re experiencing certain emotions, and how those behaviours affect you in your day-to-day life and in achieving your long term goals. Everything starts with awareness, when we are conscious of how we react to certain situations, people, emotions etc. is is a heck of a lot easier to manage those emotions and to effectively respond rather than react.

#3) Be open and question your own opinions In order to have empathy for others, we must be able to understand where they’re coming from. We typically surround ourselves with people who share similar viewpoints and experiences as we do. It is easy to get stuck in our little bubble. It is important to remember that our opinions and viewpoints are influenced by our perspective on the world around us, our surroundings, our upbringing etc. while we may feel very strongly about something and believe we are right, we can’t think in terms of right and wrong. Practice be able to question your own views so you can be open to new ideas, better understand other people and see the world from a different perspective. I believe we are all doing the best we can with what we have, we are always growing and evolving and remember we can change our minds, or at the very least understand where someone is coming from ad agree to disagree.

#4) Take radical responsibility for your own feelings Your emotions and behaviours are yours, it may be hard to accept but other people can’t actually make you feel a certain way, you are ultimately in charge. Don’t get me wrong, they can do things they shouldn’t do that hurt you and are disrespectful, but you can only control your actions and reactions. Once you start accepting responsibility for how you feel and how you behave it will have a positive impact on all areas of your life. The next time you feel hurt or slighted by someone, try communicating that you FEEL xyz, rather than “YOU made me feel xyz”. Express your feelings and why it hurt you or why you disagree with what they did or said and let go of any expectations- they may or may not apologize or even understand what they’ve done. We are only causing ourselves to suffer when we hold these expectation and dwell on things, feel all the feels, accept it and let it go. Hint: this takes PRACTICE and the right tools.

#5) Practice gratitude, celebrate your wins and reflect on the “negative”

Take the time to be grateful for everything in your life, even the challenges because they are lessons and opportunities. Celebrate all wins, big or small, and reflect on difficult experiences. This expands your self-awareness, helps to keep you aligned with your values and goals, increases positive emotions, helps you grow as a person and build your resilience.

Now, get yourself a journal and start reflecting! Share your challenges and wins along the way, this is an ongoing journey, I am learning new things every day and I’d love to share this experience with you :)