Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and regulate one’s emotions, as well as to understand others’ emotions. A high EQ not only helps to improve relationships but also helps you to stay stress-free and content in your professional life. The importance of emotional intelligence is so vital that many companies have now started testing people’s EQ before hiring them. 

In this article, we will help you to understand what is emotional intelligence and how can you improve it.

What is Emotional Intelligence or EQ?

One of the most challenging tasks is to control and express our emotions in tough times. But, if we can be more aware of our emotions, we will be able to learn to handle them to our benefit in all aspects of our life. This is where emotional intelligence comes into the picture. By improving your EQ, you can also understand the mindsets of other people. 

There are mainly 7 components of EQ. They are:

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Self-management
• Empathy
• Motivation
• Social Awareness
• Relationship Management

What are the differences between IQ and EQ?

There is a major difference between EQ and IQ. IQ is associated with your ability to analyze, and use reasoning and creativity to solve problems. On the other hand, EQ is associated with understanding emotions in you and other people. 

In most cases, IQ is an inborn ability. But, EQ needs to be learned. Besides, IQ focuses more on intellect, common sense, and mental ability to solve challenges. However, EQ focuses on recognizing and controlling one’s own emotions and perceiving that of others.

What is the Importance of Emotional Intelligence?

There was a myth earlier that only people with high intellect can succeed in life. But, we have seen many intelligent people failing in building relationships in both personal and professional life. Besides, many of these people may lack social skills. Thus, it is proved that IQ is not enough to succeed in life. Here comes the importance of emotional intelligence.

Here are some ways high EQ can help you:

1. Improves your position at work place – High EQ can help you to assess other peoples’ emotions and learn to react accordingly. This helps you to mingle with people well at your workplace or even in your personal life. Building relationships is one of the major goals for all big companies around the world. So, by improving your social skills, you can keep your employees happy and motivated. 
2. Helps you to be more flexible – In this fast-moving world, one needs to learn to be flexible to succeed. Since high EQ helps you to react to a situation after studying other people’s emotions, you tend to be more adaptable to changes. You learn to embrace changes easily. 
3. Makes relationships stronger – Once you are aware of your emotions, then you know how to express them effectively. Besides, understanding others’ emotions can help you know how they are feeling. Thus, you will be able to make good use of your emotional quotient to improve relationships at the workplace and in your personal life.
4. Keeps you stress-free – If you do not know how you can control your emotions, you can be a victim of depression, anxiety, and anger. However, learning to control them will help you to handle your emotions even in hard times. Thus, you can be stress-free, happy, and content in your life.
5. Improves social skills – Having a high EQ helps you to understand people better than before. You can recognize the people who can be your friends. Thus, it helps you to connect with more people. Social communication with like-minded people keeps you happy and stress-free.
6. Helps in better decision–making – EQ helps you to learn to make decisions by making your emotions work in your favor. It helps you to learn to make decisions by understanding human emotions. Besides, it even helps you to block any negative emotions coming your way while making any important decisions. 
7. Makes you a great leader – A person with high EQ knows how to use their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. They can understand the same in other people and motivate them to do better. Besides, EQ helps you to defuse conflicts by controlling your emotions. Your ability to display your emotions in a controlled manner has a positive impact on others around you.

How to Improve Your EQ?

Follow these easy tips to improve your emotional intelligence:

• Use a journal to note down the actions or reactions as a result of your emotions and study your emotions.
• Learn to remain calm and stress-free in difficult situations.
• Talk to yourself about any emotional experiences of your childhood that might have triggered negative emotions in you.
• Practice mindful meditation.
• Practice deep breathing exercises.
• Learn non-verbal signals while communicating with others.
• Make good use of listening skills while talking with others.
• Make use of body language while communicating with others.
• Learn to accept people with their flaws.
• Keep yourself self-motivated by reading inspirational books and choosing a good company.
• Use laughter and humor to reduce stress.
• Learn to resolve conflicts in a constructive way.
• Get out of your comfort zone at times.
• Stop being too critical while judging others.
• Learn to show empathy when needed.
• Learn to know other people and understand what makes them react the way they do. 

Acquiring high EQ needs time, patience, and consistency in your approach. Once you realize the importance of emotional intelligence, you will be able to make better use of it. You cannot learn EQ or emotional quotient from books or online. This is something you need to learn on your own since every individual has unique emotions. Besides, no one can help you to understand others’ emotions either. You need to invest your time and effort to figure that out. But once you are able to succeed in achieving high EQ, it can help you to be a better person in every way.