How to Build Your Emotional Intelligence
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Words by Jen Woodward
Emotional intelligence (EI) is essentially being able to recognise and regulate your own emotions. The greater your EI, the more easily you’re able to foster relationships, communicate and articulate what you’re feeling to others. Improving your emotional intelligence is such a valuable thing - it will benefit your work, personal, family and romantic relationships.
Emotional intelligence will not only help you interact with others but those relationships will be stronger. There are some obvious reasons for this; being able to observe and respect others emotions allows for a more empathetic response and smoother communication all round. Also, being able to explain your own feelings helps the other person to understand more, and being able to regulate what you’re feeling may lead to fewer blow-ups and subsequent arguments. A recent study found having just one partner in a romantic relationship with higher emotional intelligence often predicts more satisfaction in the relationship. In fact, higher emotional intelligence will help all the relationships in your life run more smoothly.
There are some practical ways to develop your emotional intelligence, benefiting both your relationship with yourself and those with others. The five components of emotional intelligence are:
Self-awareness
Self-regulation
Motivation
Empathy
Social skills
Self-awareness
The most important thing for improving emotional intelligence is being aware of your emotions. Are you able to name a feeling, to identify it for yourself as it arises? This is something that improves with practice and is best implemented as a mindset. Regularly check on your strengths, triggers, big emotional reactions and values so you become really familiar with yourself. Each day for a month ( just to get into the habit) mentally check-in or write in a journal; what triggered you today, how did you react and does that link in with any of your bigger values? This is a really interesting exercise in just getting to know yourself better and the benefits are huge.
Self-regulation
Another important tool utilised to different degrees by each of us and at different times is self-regulation. This means no more blocking or repressing our emotions or stuffing them down so we don’t feel them. Distracting ourselves whilst feeling an emotion often leads to it appearing later in a less controlled way. Those arguments about seemingly little things might actually be you expressing something that annoyed you earlier. Perhaps you’re arguing about doing the washing up, but actually you felt earlier on that week that your partner takes you for granted and that’s what really needs to be spoken about.
If a feeling bubbles up, notice the emotion, sit with it for a moment even if it feels uncomfortable. Also, notice the coping mechanisms you have used to take your mind off something, did you watch TV for hours or drink a bottle of wine after a bad day? Ask yourself why are you avoiding feeling this emotion. If your coping mechanisms are impacting others, can you express your emotions, in a healthy way, are you able to take responsibility for what you feel and own it?
Motivation
It takes work to keep checking in with your feelings; it often feels much easier just to let them out in whichever way you’ve always let them out (or for many keep them in). In your journal, write down all the reasons improved emotional intelligence might be a good thing in your life. Keep it positive and check back on this often. Try and remember that doing this work on yourself is only going to help you later, things will become easier if you keep chipping away.
Empathy and social skills
This is a skill that improves with practice. Whilst chatting to others try and become aware and practice validating their feelings - figuring out what emotions have come up for them and why that makes sense in terms of what they are going through - helps you to understand their perspective. This is very different from saying, ‘oh yeah, I felt like that too when something happened to me’. It’s more like ‘I can understand you feeling this, especially since someone you love did this’.
Also, try mirroring in conversations, we often think we’ve heard what another has said but in fact, we haven’t. By repeating back what someone says in a conversation, we show them we’ve really listened and understand.
Then more you check in with your own and others emotions, the better you’ll become at it and the more natural it will feel.
Jen Woodward is a psychodynamic therapist who works in London. You can find out more about Jen and her work over on her website.
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