7 ways to boost your Emotional Intelligence and amaze back in the real World.
What is Emotional Intelligence?
Before 1995 no-one understood why some people performed better than others. Doing well at work wasn’t found to be linked to Intelligence (IQ) in tests. After-all, once you have the qualification to be a doctor or a lawyer the playing field is level again. There was something else that allowed people to outperform their co-workers! Introducing Emotional Intelligence (EQ).
It’s how you handle yourself. It’s self-awareness. How you manage yourself and your relationships with others.
7 ways to improve your EQ
Let’s not get bogged down in psychology. Let’s focus on actionable things we can do over as lockdown lifts to start part two of our lives well.
1) Relieve your stress in a way that works for you
This is often a multi-level approach. Let’s be honest life is stressful. Mental illness is on the rise across the board. Be pleased. Stress-relieving techniques will improve both your mental health and your EQ.
What are the immediate things that pop into your mind when I say stress relieving techniques? If you think of deep breathing exercises and yoga with a smile then great. If it is more of a moan then I hear you! I used to hate yoga, as you will discover in my next blog post. I was more of a Thai kickboxer.
Now, I love yoga and do it every day. And as you will discover it is not for stress relief alone. I met enough highly-strung yoga teachers in my shop to know that doing yoga alone is not always enough. The shop put-on may different classes and events for the community.
I’m here to give you the excuse; we all need to do what we love. If it’s dancing around the front room, do it. If it’s running along the beach with the wind in your face, do it. If it’s ranting in a book rather than at your children, do it. I love to freewrite, or putting pen to paper and letting my hand write without edit.
Maybe, you prefer to paint? Take up a one-to-one class outdoors then. Hell, scream at the world from the top of the hill. Yep. That works too. I prefer to roar though, so anyone hearing me doesn’t think I need help. Not immediate help anyway.
2) Pause before response
This way to improve your EQ is much easier to practise when you are not a tightly coiled spring of stress. In fact, most of these ways are. Hence, point number one.
My top tips are to sleep on as many emails or texts that you can. Then give them a re-read the next day before sending them. You pick up more typos too then. A win-win.
In conversation, think about what you are about to say before saying it. Easier said than done I know. I started to stutter at 40 years old. Crazy, right?! I worked through slowing down and breathing before opening my mouth and as if by magic. Goodbye stutter! My thoughts were just moving faster than my mouth could. Another side effect of that is saying things you don’t mean. Remember unless people are literally sociopaths they are not deliberately and continually trying to upset us. Let’s practise thinking first about what may be going on for them and then choosing response over a reaction.
3) Take responsibility for your feelings and behaviour
Let’s say goodbye to people making us act or feel a certain way. I hear that you don’t mean to blame others. I don’t… usually. After-all sometimes, it’s all in the terminology.
Words are the reason why people get angry when we express ourselves. Then we don’t feel heard. Wonder why we even bothered trying to talk to them anyway. All we need is a simple change that takes practice. I mean we’re all a bit out of communication practise this year. Why not try to -
Swap ‘you made me angry when you said that’ to ‘when you said (what they said)…. I felt angry’
If we lose the ‘made me’ and use ‘I feel’ we are taking ownership of our feelings. If we stop blaming others for everything negative in our lives it will make a huge difference. I have already started this one. It works. You can probably hear the difference now saying the phrase to yourself reading this. One phrase puts you on the defensive; raises a spark of anger. Right? The other maybe even a little empathy?
4) Sit with our negative feelings
Everywhere you look it is all about ‘being happy’ and the ‘positive mindset’ mentality. Actually, we learn more from our negative feelings. We can listen to them. We can validate ourselves. Hear ourselves. We can understand how we feel and address the cause. All of this will help us later as it will stop us from distracting others who are in pain and learn to validate their feelings too. Above help and coming up with a solution people want to be heard.
Sitting with our feelings can also be a meditation. You may sit in silence, or led meditation, listening to your breathing as I do. I like Insight Timer Free App for this. At first, I started my meditation journey annoying myself. This frustration ended when I learnt how to do it with the headspace app free trial. So easy.
Your meditation may be watching the end of a fishing rod or colouring in. Meditation is a great way to not only notice your emotions and feelings but also to drop ideas in. You can gain empathy for others. Forgive your past. Or give your inner child a hug. I haven’t got that far yet. That idea always makes me want to laugh for some reason.
5) Active listening
I used to be awful at this. I was one of those people who would only listen long enough to take my turn in the conversation. Sometimes I get so excited I interrupt. It has been a pain in my life and something I am working hard on. I have friends like me who do exactly the same thing. I am not always around my friends. When meeting with people on zoom, or back in the real world, I bring my notebook and then write down what I am triggered to say. I learnt in counselling too that it is a good idea to repeat back what the other person says. A summary doesn’t work. It changes what they say and can frustrate the other person more than you’re non-listening.
So try ‘I heard you say…’ and repeat back their words. Also, ask them how a certain thing makes them feel rather than assuming you know.
6) Get a growth mindset
This one is about looking at the world in a different way. Failure is a good thing. Criticism is a good thing. To improve our EQ we have to fail. Even when doing well let’s ask ourselves ‘how can I do better?’ All businesses, or projects, need to ask for feedback. Then look at the negative comments. Praise can breed stagnation and apathy. The world is always changing. We have to keep changing with it.
I have read a lot around this subject. I recommend Alfi Kohn’s book ‘Punished by rewards’, Every parent and person in management should read it. Also ‘The subtle art of not giving a fk’. This is an easy read and where I first discovered that James Dyson had 5,126 failed prototypes prior to his first working cyclone. Can you imagine? Five thousand one hundred and twenty-six failures before his first success. Incredible.
7) Assert your authority
For those of you who grew up in the nineties, you may recognise this heading from the South Park animation. Cartman used to always shout ‘respect my authority’. Shouting is one clear way to show that you have completely lost control of course. As I know every time I find myself shouting at my kids. The best example is when you shout at them to stop shouting. More a lesson in irony than anything else. 😉
It is important to look at our motivations and be kind over competitive. But, the first needs we need to meet are our own. If looking after our grandchild once a week is great, but three times leaves us feeling tired and used. Then we need to say. A firm no. Justification is usually unnecessary. It tends to irritate the other party. We are grown adults. There is no need to sound over apologetic for having our own needs.
I hope you have found this post helpful. Please like and comment. Remember, it is hard to change the ways we have been behaving for years. Improving my own emotional intelligence has been an ongoing saga. One of the trickiest journeys of my life. But it’s definitely also worth the ride.
Stay Authentic Stay You!
