Emotional Intelligence
“Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth.” - Mayer & Salovey, 1997
Emotional intelligence is defined as the capacity to recognize and control one's emotions to attain success and happiness in one's life. Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize your own emotional condition as well as the emotional states of others so that you may connect with them more effectively.
Social intelligence includes emotional intelligence. While interacting with people, it allows you to direct your thoughts and behaviors. It allows you to successfully convey your opinions, sympathize with others, and resolve conflict and obstacles.
Emotional Brain
“Anybody can become angry. What is not easy is to be angry with the right person and to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way.”
We are conditioned to act in a certain manner because of the way our brain has been educated. There are times in our life when our feelings take precedence over our reasonable reasoning. This is due to the fact that our brain is divided into two sections: logical and emotive. When emotions are strong, they take over the reasoning portion of the brain and cause a reaction that manifests as anger, fear, happiness, love, surprise, disgust, and sadness.
The intellectual and emotional brains work in tandem. The rational brain aids in the formation of well-considered judgments that take into account all relevant factors. The emotional brain, on the other hand, is involved in spontaneous and occasionally irrational judgments.
EQ vs IQ
IQ is a hereditary trait that cannot be modified by life events in most cases. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, may be taught and implanted in children at an early age so that they can maximize their intellectual potential.
Having a higher IQ is the traditional definition of success. However, according to Daniel Goleman, people with just enough IQ to get into a good institution but a strong EQ make more money than those with a higher IQ but a weak EQ.
A vast body of evidence suggests that good emotional intelligence is more necessary for success than IQ. EQ is responsible for 80% of a person's performance at work, whereas IQ is responsible for just 20%.
The 5 Domains of Emotional Intelligence
Self Awareness
Managing Emotions
Motivating Oneself
Recognizing Emotions in Others
Handling relationships
Self Awareness
The first step in gaining emotional intelligence is to have a deeper knowledge of yourself. The capacity to understand your emotions and how they impact your thoughts and conduct is known as self-awareness.
Knowing your strengths and flaws is part of being self-aware. It entails having self-assurance and an accurate self-evaluation of how and why you respond in various situations.
You can make better judgments if you can recognize your emotions as they occur.
Managing Emotions
The capacity to manage impulsive impulses and behaviors well, as well as being positive, taking initiative, and adjusting to changing circumstances in difficult situations.
Goleman emphasizes that you cannot escape experiencing emotions. You can, however, control them after they arrive.
Goleman discusses the Ventilation fallacy for the most common emotion-Anger.
The Ventilation Fallacy
Goleman narrates a story about a time he gets into a cab. A young man is signaled to move out of the way by an irritated cab driver who honks. The young man makes an obscene gesture, aggravating the cab driver even more. He added you had to shout back because it helps you feel better as he revved his engine loudly.
While you vent when you're furious, you're prolonging rather than resolving your bad mood. Anger just feeds on itself. When you're depressed, venting is an excellent approach to legitimizing your feelings. As a result, you must keep an eye on your emotions.
Follow these simple tricks to relieve your bad mood:
•Take deep breaths
•Reframe your thoughts and try to avoid overindulging in negative thoughts
•Go for a walk
Motivating Oneself
In order to master aptitude, emotional attributes such as excitement and perseverance are esse.
According to Goleman, most Asian students outperform their peers not because of their IQ, but because of their willingness to work hard to rectify their weaknesses.
Deferred gratification has an impact on self-motivation as well. Goleman recounts the classic marshmallow test, in which four-year-olds were given a marshmallow to eat. Before consuming the marshmallow, they were instructed to wait 15 minutes. They will be given another marshmallow if they do so. However, if they ate it before that time, they will not be given another.
Years later, it was discovered that the youngsters who did not consume the marshmallow right away performed better in life than those who did.
Self-control was required to delay pleasure. This allows you to make some difficult decisions that will benefit you in the long run rather than making rash decisions that will harm you in the near run.
Recognizing Emotions in Others
It is the ability to comprehend others' feelings, needs, and worries.
People use nonverbal indicators like facial expressions and gestures to describe their sentiments significantly more than they do with words. Understanding individuals through nonverbal communication and empathizing with them makes it easier to connect with them.
Let's say someone at work makes a mistake on a project. It will not lead to a solution if you speak to them in a harsh and insulting tone. Instead, attempt to offer constructive feedback with specifics and recommendations so that you may address the issue head-on. This provides individuals with hope and determination to improve their situation.
Handling Relationships
The capability to form and sustain positive relationships, communicate effectively, and resolve disagreements under high-stress settings.
Emotions are extremely infectious. If you can maintain your composure when someone speaks to you in an aggressive tone, the other person will most likely begin to relax.
This capacity to manipulate another person's emotional state is a powerful tool for influencing and persuading people to follow you.
The combination of both cognitive and emotional abilities leads to improved performance and, ultimately, success.