Emotional Intelligence beats IQ and here’s why.

I personally believe that Emotional Intelligence is even more important than IQ. Want to find out why, some may say it’s a crazy belief? Well, then keep reading.

Firstly it’s utterly important to be aware of our emotions since these are the ones who rule our lives. How you feel defines how you behave, what you think and even the way you dress! For example many people wear dark clothes when they feel sad and colourful ones when they’re cheerful.

You see, it just makes sense, doesn’t it? To be able to analyse our own emotions and find out why we are feeling them at a certain moment could mean the solution to many of our problems.

So what is EQ?

The concept of Emotional Intelligence became famous when American psychologist Daniel Goleman published his book about it in 1995. Since then it has become a strong interest for the science community and many other people around the world.

In a few words, Emotional Intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include three skills:

1. emotional awareness – to identify your own emotions and those of others,
2. to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving,
3. to manage emotions, including the ability to regulate your own emotions, and the ability to cheer up or calm down another person.

Of course, all these things sound easy, I know. It’s much harder to get to the point when you know exactly what emotion you’re experimenting.

Start working on your emotional intelligence

You might ask yourself, how one starts working on his or hers emotional intelligence? The fact is we are not used to describing our emotions thoroughly. If you’re sad, you say only “I’m kind of sad”, and that’s it. In some occasions, it’s not even that easy to open up about “negative” emotions to anyone just like that.

But what would happen if you give in to your sadness completely? Feel it 100%. Cry, if you must. Rage and punch something, if you must – without hurting anyone, of course!

Then, ask yourself: am I angry? Am I depressed? Am I lonely? Etc. When you get to the emotion that feels correct, proceed to ask yourself why.

And then you do the same thing: you come up with a list of the possible reasons why you could feel that way. Maybe it’s because you have problems with your family, or your job, or whatever. The point is that only you know best what to ask.

Here come the Pro’s (there are actually no Cons) 

What’s good about nourishing Emotional Intelligence is not just about you. Imagine all the things you can do when you understand other people’s emotions. So this would mean that Emotional Intelligence is, in a way, a virtue more than an ability.

The first step is to learn to listen. 

No, like really listen. This means to focus entirely on what the other person is expressing. It’s as simple as that. No judgements. Also, suppress any impulse of thinking and/or sharing about how you felt once or what you think about said subject. That’s not called listening. That’s forcing your input.

In my personal opinion, to be able to sympathize with other human beings (no matter who they are or where they come from) is absolutely the essential rule of prosperous human relationships.

Among other things, traveling and encountering different cultures is something that helps you build this sympathy within. Here is my post about traveling alone.

Above all, always open up. No emotion is a bad thing. They are within you for a reason and there’s no-one better than you to find out what that reason is.

Want to read more advices from an experienced Fail Coach? Then browse through our categories Life Coaching, Real Life Stories and Business Failure and take a day off, because you’ll find plenty of interesting reading material.