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Saturday, June 19, 2021

How to Be Emotionally Intelligent

How to Be Emotionally Intelligent
How to Be Emotionally Intelligent

How to Be Emotionally Intelligent. A successful life is not based on Intelligence Quotient but on Emotional Quotient, the way you control yourself and build relationships with others.

This time I will discuss the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. This book looks at how you can improve your emotional intelligence skills.

If you want to be successful in your career, just doing well is not enough, you need to understand how to communicate with other people, maybe with coworkers, bosses, clients, and so on.

Whatever your job, whether it's working independently or having a career in a company, of course, we cannot be separated from interacting with other people. Not only that, to manage the pressures of work and life, you must also be able to become an expert in controlling emotions, especially in difficult situations.

That's why this book is so important, helping you not only to build strong relationships with others, but with yourself as well.

How to Be Emotionally Intelligent, Which You Can Try

I summarized them into three highlights from the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves:

First, what is emotional intelligence?


You may be aware that there are people around you who seem to be good at reading other people's situations and body language, they also have a knack for responding appropriately.

They are the type of people who can calm an angry coworker, communicate with a difficult coworker, and calm a nervous coworker. What made this person so skilled?

As it turns out, this is rooted in their emotional intelligence abilities. Emotional intelligence or known as Emotional Quotients is the ability to understand and manage emotions.

It also involves social competence, which means understanding other people's emotions and good communication skills. People with high Emotional Intelligence scores are able to prevent their own emotions from influencing their behavior.

How to Be Emotionally Intelligent
How to Be Emotionally Intelligent

Interestingly, emotional intelligence can be increased by observing other people who have high Emotional Intelligence and by developing relationships with them.

Emotional Intelligence is basically a combination of four elements:

First, self-awareness. It is the ability to understand your feelings or behavior.

Second, self-management. It is the ability to control yourself so that you can respond appropriately to different conditions.

Third, social awareness. We have discussed earlier that the main thing is how to control yourself. So, this time it is a matter of reading the situation and conditions.

People who are experts in social awareness are able to understand what makes other people angry, sad, or happy.

Fourth, relationship management. Understanding yourself and others will help you build stronger relationships with the important people in your life.

For example, if you know a coworker finds it difficult to accept criticism directly, then you might try to offer criticism that is easier to accept.

Second, start with yourself first


How well do you know yourself? You may know what you like and don't like, but self-awareness goes deeper than that. It is about how you understand your emotions and feelings, so that you are not controlled by them. You become aware of your feelings, including when you are angry or upset.

For example, one day it turns out that you left your wallet at home when you got to the office, the coffee you made spilled, or your co-worker didn't work according to the deadline.

If in a day you have a bad experience, you may become very upset and want to let it all out. However, in this state, you should try to practice self-awareness.

Realize that when you're in a bad mood, that feeling will definitely go away. Anything that puts you in a bad mood is certainly not doomsday right, so why should you overreact?

It is an example of practicing self-awareness when negative feelings arise. What if it was the other way around? When did you get the good news?

Imagine, your favorite store is holding a big discount, you immediately rush to go and shop as much as possible.

In this state, it is as if you are being controlled by your own emotions. When in this state, try to stop for a moment and ask yourself, do you really need this item? This self-awareness exercise will try to make you aware of your feelings.

In addition to self-awareness, the next exercise you can do is self-management. This is not an easy thing. After understanding what we are feeling, this is an exercise to balance logic and feeling. You can also weigh which is more important and prioritize for long-term goals.

For example, you want to lose weight, but then you are invited to eat by your friends in an all-you-can-eat restaurant. How? Which choice did you take?

Of course every choice has consequences and is your choice closer to your goal or not?

There are two exercises you can do to practice self-management:

First, the Emotion vs Logic List. So, when for example you are faced with two choices, let alone a difficult choice. So you can practice by making a list between feelings and logic.

Write your logical and emotional arguments on two separate lines, so this can help you see things more clearly.

Second, use self-talk. The average human being has 50 thousand thoughts every day and these thoughts will affect your feelings and attitudes. So when you become aware of how you are feeling, try to practice changing negative thoughts into more positive ones.

Third, learn to understand other people


We have discussed previously, if everything has to start with ourselves first, then we can practice our ability to understand other people.

This exercise involves observing other people's behavior, expressions, body language, and tone of voice to see when a joke is appropriate or when it's better to give someone a chance to vent their frustration.


For the first step, you can start by calling someone by name, By remembering and saying his or her name, this is the first step to attracting other people's attention. Next, you must be fully present, listening, and observing.

This means that we must give the other person our full attention and be willing to consider their point of view. This requires the willingness and ability to understand the other person's point of view even if they differ from yours.

Conclusion


That's what I wrote about How to Be Emotionally Intelligent, One of the main goals of emotional intelligence is being able to build good relationships with other people.

To improve, you can learn by asking for input from the people around you. How they feel when they interact with you.

How to Be Emotionally Intelligent
How to Be Emotionally Intelligent

Everyone is basically difficult to accept input from others. However, constructive criticism can improve you as a person and also ultimately improve your relationships with other people.

People with good emotional intelligence are able to control themselves, know when to speak, and when to be silent. They are also able to read situations and conditions when dealing with other people.

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