Mastering Your Life By Mastering Your Emotions: Emotional Intelligence
For easier understanding, emotional intelligence refers to the ability to understand emotions, express it and manage it. This is not just about the emotions of the person involved, but of others as well. This skill and ability is often underestimated, but in many aspects of life, like in relationships, leadership endeavours, personal life, professional development, it can determine success. As a matter of fact, to be able to live peaceable with people, be responsible for your actions, be humble enough to relate with others with ethics and etiquette, is as a result of emotional intelligence. When you have mastered this, then you would have been able to control a very strategic aspect of your life.
A lot of people focus more on the development of IQ (intelligence quotient), which talks about the level of your understanding and comprehension, which can also enable you to solve real life challenges. But one thing they fail to understand is that there is life beyond the cognitive world. Your IQ will not come in handy when relating with people or when navigating social complexities, or even building and maintaining healthy relationships, or when making sensitive and informed decisions, but your emotional intelligence will. You need to understand that your good relationship with people is one of the currencies that can buy you opportunities in life. This can be enhanced by your emotional intelligence.
To grow in emotional intelligence, there are some foundations that need to be put in place and we will take a look at some of them. The first one is self-awareness. You have to first understand your own emotions - know what influences them, and how they affect you and your actions. When you become aware of yourself, you will not be overwhelmed by stress, emotions like anger, feelings, and even frustration. Instead of being controlled by them, you will understand how to control them. For example, if you are aware that certain things predispose you to anger, then you are on the pathway to overcome them. The awareness of yourself helps you to master it.
The next foundation is self-regulation. This talks about controlling yourself and your emotions, and being able to redirect unwholesome emotions and then adapt to changes within you and in your environment. To grow in emotional intelligence, you have to learn to think before you take actions or even speak. Do not be caught taking impulsive actions. Try to be calm even in the presence of pressure. There are times that you may feel the impulse to talk or act out of pressure or out of criticisms or opposition or things like that, but when you think for a moment, you will realise that the action may not be worth it. When you learn to control yourself especially when you are angry, then you have mastered a fundamental aspect of your life.
Another foundation is empathy. Trust me, other people have their own emotions and you need to respect that. For example, when something happens to someone, it does not stop at feeling sorry for them - which is just sympathy; you also need to step into their shoes and understand what they feel. This will help you to understand how to deal with them. This can help to build a sense of belonging, trust, acceptance, deeper human connection, and will also make you a better human.
The final foundation that needs to be put in place for you to grow in emotional intelligence is your social skills. How do you relate with people? How are your interactions with people? All these are part of your social skills. It is not just what you say that matters in an interaction, but how you say it - the mood, tones, expression, etc, are part of what matter. People with strong social skill can easily influence and motivate others positively. As a leader, you need this kind of skill to lead effectively, not by forcing or coercing your followers, but by inspiring them. More so, it also leads to good teamwork. Always have in mind that you are absolutely reasonable to build your own emotionally intelligence.
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