By the end of the 20th century, researchers noticed that, for a successful career, it was not enough to have high intelligence and be an expert in some field. Something more is needed, something related to the feelings and emotions of a person. This quality is called emotional intelligence.
According to the scientific journalist Daniel Goleman, the concept of emotional intelligence, or EI, includes 5 components.
1. Self-consciousness – the ability of a person to correctly understand his emotions and motivation, assess their weak and strong points, and define goals and life values.
2. Self-regulation – the ability to control one’s emotions and restrain impulses.
3. Motivation – the ability to strive for a goal for the sake of its achievement.
4. Empathy – the ability to understand the emotions experienced by others, take the feelings of other people into account when making decisions, as well as empathize with other people.
5. Social skills – the ability to build relationships with people and guide their behavior in the desired direction.
The high level of development of all components of EI helps us more effectively build a career and feel satisfaction from our work. Emotional intelligence can be improved by having relationships and interacting with people, so visit https://godatenow.com and start self-improvement and meeting new people right now. So, let’s spend some time and talk about ways of improving your emotional intelligence.
Learning to track your condition
A person achieves a goal only when they clearly see where they need to go and understand what is going on around them. He who does not know his own emotional world goes through life with his eyes closed.
According to Paul Ekman, an American psychologist and an expert in the study of emotions, we have 7 basic emotions: anger, sadness, contempt, disgust, fear, surprise, and joy. They are mixed into cocktails and form the basis of automatic reactions to what is happening. Moreover, several emotions (usually two) are leading in our lives. And it is important to track which ones.
Exercise 1
To find out how you understand your feelings, answer 3 questions.
1. What emotion am I experiencing now?
2. Is this emotion for me at this moment?
3. How often do I experience this emotion throughout the day?
Describe only those emotions that you have noted when reading these questions. This exercise will help you start the process of self-analysis. Do it regularly in different situations, and, eventually, you will get used to paying attention to your feelings.
Exercise 2
“Diary ofemotions.” Throughout the day, record all your emotions and the eventsthat caused them. The goal is to understand yourself better. For visualization,you can use colored markers or emoticons to indicate the color of emotions. Andthen set yourself a task – to increase the number of funny emoticons in thediary. And remember, most events are neutral in nature. And emotions are justour reaction to them. Exercises are good and all, but you should also expandyour knowledge about the concept of emotional intelligence and everything aboutit, so check out www.danielgoleman.info/topics/emotional-intelligence/ for everything else you may need to know about EI.
Exercise 3
1. Lower your head, silently droop your shoulders, and, while looking at the floor, say in a sad voice, “I am a successful person; everything works out for me…”
2. Then raise your hands up, looking at the sky, with your chin raised, straighten your back, and say in a confident voice, “I am a loser; everything is wrong with me; nothing works out…”
What did you feel? It turns out that the brain does not understand the words! But facial expressions and gestures send signals to the cortex of the brain (the ancient limbic system), and we begin to feel what the body is transmitting.
Now that you have felt the difference, for two weeks, strike a “leader pose” for at least a couple of minutes a day. On the third week, you will see how the world has changed around!
Exercise 4
Sit back, take a breath, and focus on breathing. Take a quiet breath on the count of 4, hold your breath for 4 counts, exhale on 4 counts. Thus, increase this count up to 8 counts. Breathe like that until you feel that you have restored your emotional state.
