Emotional intelligence is easy when you know how

Many people find it difficult to connect with others at work and at home. A key factor to having that connection can be the lack of emotional intelligence. Studies prove having this skill can lead to success, a better IQ and better relationships. Emotionally intelligent people leave their emotions at home. They are well balanced, reliable and capable of doing pretty much anything or handling any situation. Emotionally intelligent people are highly regarded and trusted individuals. Customers would rather do business with a person they trust than someone they don’t, even when offered a better product.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is basically how well we handle ourselves, our relationships at work and in our personal life. It has the following four components:

Self-awareness – Know what you’re feeling and why you feel it. It’s a morale compass and helps with good decision making.

Self-management – Handle impulsive feelings and/or behaviours calmly, so that they don’t  get in the way of better judgement.

Social awareness – Understand emotions, needs and concerns of other people through empathy.

Relationship management – Combine the above together.

Having emotional intelligence helps you recognise friend from foe. It can reduce stress and you’re able to return to a state of balanced equilibrium, where you feel loved and happy. These essential abilities also requires non-verbal communication skills that can connect you to other people’s emotions.

Flexible and constantly adapting. Understand that fear of change may feel paralysing, but is a major threat to your success and happiness. They look for change and form a plan of action with manageable steps.

Self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin. They’re difficult to offend. Nothing really bothers them and are usually surprised when you get emotional.

Say ‘no’ and exert self-control. It helps them honour their existing commitments to successfully finish them. When you find it difficult to say ‘no’ you’re more likely to experience stress, burn-out and even depression, according to research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco.

Let go of mistakes. They know how to distance themselves from past mistakes, by learning from them. By doing this they’re able to adapt and adjust for future success.

Dwelling on mistakes can make you anxious. Forgetting about mistakes makes you bound to repeat them. The key to balance lies with how you learn from failures to improve yourself and your capabilities . This creates the tendency to get back up each time you fall and see it as a learning curve.

Give and expect nothing in return. When an emotionally intelligent person gives you something spontaneously, without expecting anything in return, it leaves a powerful impression.

Don’t hold grudges. They let it go quickly. Holding a grudge is a stress related and negative response. When you think about a stressful situation your body automatically goes into fight-or-flight mode. This survival mechanism forces you to fight or run away. Holding on to grudges may also contribute to high blood pressure.

Emotionally intelligent people won’t let anyone limit their joy. They feel good and don’t let anyone’s opinions or negative remarks take this away. Never compare yourself to others, and always take other people’s opinions lightly. Your self-worth comes within and not from what other people are thinking about you or doing.

Emotional intelligence is the new smart and is easy to develop with the right coaching. It’s a great investment to get a coach and even I have several coaches to help me move to the next level of my career. Also I cover this topic with my clients in Communications coaching sessions.

By effectively self regulating emotions you respond from a place of reason and become more successful as a leader, team member and individual. You learn to be more resilient personally. Emotional intelligence helps you communicate more effectively and you naturally become excellent at making connections, networking and bringing people together to work on projects. When you practice emotional intelligence, you manage emotions instead of letting emotions manage you.

Want to master your emotions and communicate from a place of leadership? Join the waiting  today. Class opens once per year.