Increasing Your Emotional Intelligence

“At best, IQ contributes about 20 percent to the factors that determine life success, which leaves 80 percent to other forces…”  ~ Daniel Goleman

A book that had a huge influence on my life is Daniel Goleman’s “Emotional Intelligence”. It is quite an old book now, being first published in 1995, but it still remains a classic introduction to EQ (or Emotional Intelligence).

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

In the words of Daniel Goldman;

“ a key set of these ‘other characteristics,’ emotional intelligence: abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think to empathize and to hope.”

How To Increase Emotional Intelligence

Being a “people pleaser” by nature my emotional intelligence has always been on the low side.  Unfortunately, being good at your job does not get you far in your career when emotions come into play. Following are some tips from the book that have helped me over the years. Unfortunately, I forgot them on a number of occasions, so it is good to be reminded again.

1. Be Self Aware

This is a biggie. Daniel says;

“Self-awareness is not an attention that gets carried away by emotions, overreacting and amplifying what is perceived. Rather, it is a neutral mode that maintains self-reflectiveness even amidst turbulent emotions.”

APA: Emotions. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cognitivebehavior.com/theory/emotions.html

The emotional part of our brain evolved long before we evolved the rational part of our brain. We are often afraid of our emotions and  run away from them rather than diving in and accepting them. Sometimes we must do what needs to be done regardless of how we feel. We should never let emotions run our lives, as difficult as that may be at times. The sad fact is that if we have high IQ and no control over our emotions then there is a high probability we will never reach our highest potential.

2. Take Responsibility – Don’t Blame Others

This really is the same as being self aware, but I wanted to single it out as it is the most visible trait of people with low EQ.  They tend to blame others for their situation and difficulties, and give other people all the power in their lives.  We must take responsibility for our own emotion state and actions.

3. Delay Gratification

In the words of Goldman: “There is perhaps no psychological skill more fundamental than resisting impulse.” In tests on children, it has been shown that the ability to delay gratification was two times as powerful in predicting their SAT scores would be as was their IQ at the age of four.  Focus and sustained attention are required for studying and blogging.  Can you delay the gratification of surfing the web, grabbing that crisp packet or watching TV?

4. Stop Worrying – The Self Fulfilling Prophecy

The mental resources we spend on worrying detract and take away our ability to figure out the problem at hand. In effect, our worries end up becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.  Easier said than done to stop worrying.

TIP: To help with worry, try being self aware, practice daily meditation, daily relaxation and daily exercise.

4. Be Hopeful

Hope helps us to persist in the midst of adversity. It’s believing that you have the will power and resources and tools to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be.  I believe being optimistic is directly proportional to how strong your “Why” in life is.  How serious are you about your Life Goals?

I hope these tips on increasing EQ have been of help. I would like to leave you with the immortal words of the late Jim Rhone:

“When the why becomes big enough, the how becomes easy.”

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About Danny Sheehan

Danny lives in Hong Kong but is originally from Australia. He is Married to Maggie and together they have two children with whom they enjoy sharing and enjoying an exciting life with daily. Danny's passions are freedom, adventure and discovery, mainly in nature and science but also spiritually. He is a great believer in living in the NOW.
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