Emotional Intelligence : 10 Practical Steps To Becoming Emotionally Intelligent.

Phaytea’s Pulse is participating in the A to Z Challenge for April 2018. The Theme is ‘Building and Sustaining a Meaningful Relationship’ and ‘Emotional Intelligence|| 10 Practical Steps To Becoming Emotionally Intelligent’ is our entry for letter E. This challenge will run for 26 days in April except Sundays. Please stop by the blog daily for subsequent posts as we read the letters of the alphabet together. Enjoy.

The first time I consciously read about Emotional Intelligence was when I wrote this post – Not All Wounds Are Visible . I wanted a better understanding of mindfulness, how it helps us live a meaningful life. Somehow, Emotional Intelligence kept coming up. I read about it, tried to practise it and found out it contributes to a healthy relationship.

Emotional Intelligence is basically when an individual is aware of his or her emotion, can seamlessly decipher that of another person, can express emotions mindfully and can handle interpersonal relationships with ease. The truth is, being emotionally intelligent goes way beyond what we read or know. It is mainly evident by our spoken words and action.

For the fact that human behaviour differ, it is important to find ways to aid human interaction without necessarily being confrontational or condescending as those are the main reasons for conflict in any relationship. Conflict might occur once in a while but to ensure we are sustaining the relationship between our partner, a colleague, family member or friend, it is necessary to take practical steps towards being emotionally intelligent.

In other words, it is safe to say that Emotional Intelligence is important for every human interaction. It is a continuous process and takes conscious effort to achieve.

10 Practical Steps To Becoming Emotionally Intelligent

One way to measure your level of emotional intelligence is by observing how you react to situations. Becoming Emotionally Intelligent involves mindfulness, it also sets the pace for the first pointer:

Manage Your Expectation.

Expectation is a strong belief that something will happen or a belief that you will achieve a certain result. Normally, there is no issue if the result you anticipated happens. The problem comes up when expectations are not met.

This also happens in human interaction. We expect that our partner, colleague or friend should behave a certain way and if they don’t, we create friction in the relationship. Emotional Intelligence involves recognising and understanding our emotions and that of others. It involves being mindful and one can only successfully evade continuous friction by knowing what is expected of you as an individual and managing same accordingly.

Any relationship needs individual effort, so it is important to know your basic expectations/deliverables as a partner, a friend, an employee e.t.c

For example, Basic Expectations In A Relationship would include:

• Constant Communication
• Love and Affection
• Kind Gestures
• Support, Time
• Intimacy
• Respect

Related: How To Manage Your Expectation

Knowing what is expected of you in any situation and actually carrying out the action affirms you as being emotionally intelligent. You do the right thing to avoid confrontations and negativity.

Practice Self Awareness

Emotional Intelligence is about embracing your individuality and harnessing the ‘good’ qualities that distinguishes you from others. It is important to note that one can harness these good qualities through practicing self awareness continuously.

Being aware of your entirety places you in a position whereby you can control how you respond to other individual without being misunderstood.

Self Awareness aids emotional intelligence because you are able to:

• Identify your emotions every time.
• Control your temperament.
• Know your strength and weaknesses.
• Apply your strength when necessary.
• Work on improving your weakness
• Be in control of your thought process.
• Know your trigger words and practice how to respond to them.
• You are more proactive than reactive.
• You know your best communication technique.

Learn To Be Open minded.

Since I started blogging, I have learnt to be very open minded. I do not always expect everyone to agree with my opinion but that does not make me wrong. This also means that if I do not agree with someone else’s opinion, I do not enforce what I think on them.

Emotional Intelligence involves respecting people’s opinion and choices. Learn to find out the two sides of a story, accept the information that works for you and let it guide your actions and behaviour.

Related:Being Broadminded

Being open minded means you are mature enough to listen to other people’s opinion, respect it, learn or unlearn and most of all, practise emotional intelligence. This also enhances relationships as you can reach a healthy agreement with your partner, friend or colleague.

If you ask me, practicing emotional intelligence is just being mindful on a daily basis. It involves being able to think for yourself and another individual. Here are other pointers that can help:

• Be accountable for your actions
• Practice counting to 10 before you respond during a conversation that is about to get heated.
• Think about the possible result of an action. Then decide if it is worth doing.
• Learn to manage criticism and how to criticize other.
• Proffer solution when you criticize others.
• Ask important question to guide your daily goals.
• Choose happiness.
• Assume everyone has a battle they are fighting. This should remind you to mindful.
• Respond without shouting.
• Monitor your tone of voice.

Emotional Intelligence allows you understand empathy and this will be seen when you interact with other people, especially in relationships.

Share your thoughts

Are you quick to react?

What other ways do you practice emotional intelligence?

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