It’s one thing to recognize emotions, but to be able to understand and gain control over these emotions, will define an individual’s emotional intelligence abilities. To better develop emotional intelligence, it is important to begin by enhancing the key aspects of emotional intelligence. According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, there are five key components of emotional intelligence that help individuals navigate through complex emotional situations, resulting in conflict management and resolution. These components relate to the day-to-day lives of everyone. By recognizing these elements and what they entail, one can gain a clearer understanding, form proper decisions, as well as promote and contribute to an emotionally intelligent workplace.
Self-Management
Self-management is all about controlling impulsive behaviors, adapting to changes, following through on personal commitments, and overall managing emotions in a healthy way. An emotionally intelligent person who is competent in self-management will think before they speak, and consider any consequences that are associated with their actions. For example, rather than becoming defensive or aggressive when receiving criticism, an individual who possesses strong self-management skills will accept the criticism, maintain composure, and process their emotions with a clear headspace. In order to improve self-management abilities, it is critical to recognize that there are many things in life that will be out of our control.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the key to self-confidence and creating a meaningful life. Simply put, self-awareness is to recognize traits of the self. This includes emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and patterns of one’s own behaviors. Beyond this, self-awareness involves being aware of the effects of your emotions, patterns, and actions. With the awareness of these traits, we can learn to better manage interactions with others and set boundaries.
Self-awareness is a critical step in the process of full acceptance or change. Without understanding the reasons behind why a person thinks the way they do, or acts in a certain way, one may never fully appreciate or understand the importance of making changes toward improvement. Emotional clarity will result in emotional responses that are healthy and appropriate.
Inference
Social skills and awareness are aimed to help manage emotional connections with others. The best way to strengthen social skills and create healthy connections is through emotional intelligence. Social skills focus on communication, influence, leadership, and conflict management. Being socially aware simply means having the ability to understand alternative perspectives, and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds, resulting in effective interactions and the building of networks. People with strong social skills pay close attention to their surroundings.
The development of social skills can be a continuous process of learning from life’s experience. This involves being open to change and new situations, and reaching out to others to understand emotional needs. A great leader will always be aware of their social surroundings, which benefits the whole team.
Internal Motivation
To excel in life, we need to be self-motivated. Self-motivation is the desire to learn and grow, based off of personal goals. It is also one of the personal competencies that are associated with emotional intelligence. A higher emotional intelligence is related to a higher motivation, optimism and resiliency. Internal motivation involves striving for personal development, in which harnessing our emotions will help to take appropriate action and implement hard work to achieve success.
It’s important that we understand the importance of motivating ourselves, rather than depending on others to do it for us. For example, emotional intelligence teaches us that if we do good on a test, we can be proud of our successes, rather than questioning our worth based off of feedback from others.
Empathy
Empathy is essential for forming interpersonal connections, as well as understanding emotional responses. Those who are empathetic will be both perceptive and proactive. Empathetic awareness is a big aspect of emotional intelligence; it helps to create awareness and sensitivity to the needs of those around us. Emotionally intelligent people will listen to gain an understanding of the feelings of another person, so that they can grasp how to properly respond to the situation.
In order for empathy to work, a person must first achieve self-awareness, and be able to recognize, classify, and understand their own feelings. This will help to relate to others, while enhancing mutual understanding and respect. Empathy will help to drive connection.
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