How to Develop Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence goes beyond academic intelligence and school performance. Also, academic intelligence and emotional intelligence do not always have to go hand in hand. But how can we foster emotional intelligence? Is it an innate ability or can it be developed? To learn more about this intelligence, do not hesitate to continue reading this Psychology-Online article: how to develop emotional intelligence in 12 steps. In which you will find techniques, strategies and activities to develop emotional intelligence. You dare?

Index

1. What is emotional intelligence
2. Emotional intelligence test
3. How to develop emotional intelligence in 12 steps

The psychologist who developed the term emotional intelligence It was Daniel goleman. Emotional intelligence is a concept that gives a new vision to the popular intelligence that has always been linked to academic performance, taking into account the cognitive and intellectual aspects of the people. Specifically, the definition of emotional intelligence refers to the

Thus, from the perspective of emotional intelligence, it is understood that not only academic skills exist as the only important skills to achieve maximum work, personal, academic and social well-being. However, from emotional intelligence it is considered that there are other more important skills to be able to achieve said well-being. Therefore, the intelligence quotient understands a secondary role when it comes to emotional intelligence.

In short, emotional intelligence is that capacity or ability that people have to be able to manage and / or understand one's own emotions and those of others. Therefore, it turns out to be a capacity that allows us to improve in terms of quality of life and in terms of maintaining better social relationships. Seeing the benefits of emotional intelligence, you might be wondering how to develop emotional intelligence. We will answer that question below.

Do you want to know what your level of emotional intelligence is? In Psychology-Online you can find a emotional intelligence test free and online to be able assess the level of emotional intelligence. It is a test that contains 68 questions that must be answered by scoring them according to a numerical scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is "totally disagree" and 5 "totally agree".

All of these questions are intended to assess five different categories: recognition of one's own emotions, emotional self-regulation, self-esteem / self-motivation, recognition of other people's emotions and relationships social.

If your score is low, don't worry, below you will find techniques, strategies and activities to develop emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is not something innate, which you have or lack from birth. It is a skill that we all have, but that is not demonstrated if it is not trained or practiced to develop it. To develop emotional intelligence it is necessary to practice it, you can do emotional intelligence exercises yourself or you can attend workshops or courses on emotional intelligence.

Here are 12 steps that allow develop emotional intelligence:

1. Know yourself: It can be useful to benefit from a self-awareness that allows you to know your own strengths and weaknesses.
2. Manage your own moods: With the help of self-knowledge, we can more easily handle the different states of mind that we go through. Knowing how to differentiate them makes it easier to recognize when we must self-regulate.
3. Empathy: maintain more respectful interpersonal relationships, approaching others without judging them. Accept people as they are. All this allows a greater fluidity in interpersonal relationships, a greater degree of maturity of people and greater well-being.
4. Detect emotions: In the same way that we must know our own emotions, we must also know the emotions behind the actions of other people.
5. Don't judge us: We should not judge ourselves for feeling one way or another. To do this, it will be useful to read this information about the self-compassion in psychology.
6. Non-verbal communication: It is important to take into account the message that is transmitted through the body, this also helps to understand the emotions and feelings expressed by oneself and other people.
7. Control thoughts: In order to control our behavior, we must first learn to control our thoughts. Well, thoughts usually make us act in unexpected ways.
8. Show emotions: Identifying the emotions we feel at each moment, in a specific way, this can help us understand how we feel at certain moments.
9. Daily: Keeping an emotions diary is a good technique to show, by writing down, how we have felt during the day. It is not about explaining the activities that have been carried out, but how we have felt in each of those activities and in each social exchange.
10. Why?: It is important to inquire into the reason for each action or reaction, both your own and those of others. On many occasions, we look only at the reaction and tend to judge the reaction as being excessive, but why has a person reacted like this? What is behind that situation so that it acts in a certain way? It is a good way to understand people and not judge them for their actions.
11. Assertiveness: once we are able to identify our emotions and feelings, it would be great to be able to express them in a assertive, understanding assertiveness as that capacity that allows us to act without causing negative or adverse. In the following article you will find techniques to develop the capacity for assertiveness.
12. Motivation: Motivation and optimism are essential to achieve our goals, if we want to train and develop our emotional intelligence, it is essential to enhance our motivation.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to develop emotional intelligence, we recommend that you enter our category of Emotions.

Extremera, N., and Fernández, P. (2004). The role of emotional intelligence in students: empirical evidence. Electronic journal of educational research, 6(2).