There are so many things emotional intelligence is not. Emotional intelligence on the surface seems very easy to crack, but in practice, it isn’t. This is as a result of the fact it has so many sides to it which is seemingly simple but in reality, is a tall order.
It’s not a skill that can be learned wholly at a go because it has to do with keeping our emotions in check. Of course, we know how tough it can be to manage the emotional mind.
Everyone has a different understanding of what emotional intelligence is really about and sometimes we focus on a particular part while neglecting the full picture.
Daniel Goleman gave us a clearer insight of what emotional intelligence really is which he went ahead to expand in his book emotional intelligence.
The emotional intelligence skill is a highly sought-after skill today that individuals and most organizations are prioritizing as they evolve from one stage to another in their lives and businesses respectively.
Despite all these, we tend to find ourselves in different situations where we assume that the concept of emotional intelligence means one thing or another.
In our understanding, we would love to look at various misconceptsions that emotional intelligence is not.
Some misconceptions about what emotional intelligence is not are as follows:
1.The idea that EI is only necessary for self-benefits.
According to Daniel Goldman, emotional intelligence which centers more on our emotions deals with not just ourselves but also others.
We are able to use emotional intelligence to manage our emotions, while on the other hand use it to understand the emotions of others. For instance, by labeling other people’s emotions we can help them through a problem.
By showing empathy, we can make others feel relieved because they know that we understand how they feel, which in return gives them a soothing relief that we care.
Aside from Daniel Goleman’s analysis of emotional intelligence, clearly, we live in a world with other people meaning that emotional intelligence cannot be about just us as we react to other people’s actions all the time throughout our lives.
Your inability to understand others will in one way or the other cause you problems when dealing with people. Emotional intelligence is not just about taking care of yourself, it also involves understanding other people’s emotions which puts you in a better position to help where you can.
- The Idea that being EI means not making mistakes anymore.
This may not be obvious, but emotional intelligence is not about not making mistakes anymore in life.
One of the mistakes we often make is looking at some people’s reaction towards life, and then concluding within us that they don’t make mistakes…invariably, also saying in our hearts that they are highly emotionally intelligent.
The fact that they have not talked about their weaknesses shouldn’t make us abruptly conclude that.
Even those people whom we think usually don’t make mistakes make mistakes in their personal lives, and unless you go close and ask, you may never know what battle they fight inside their minds.
As you increase your level of EI, you have to take off the idea of not ever making mistakes again. All you should focus on is improving and getting back on your feet when you make mistakes.
Because having the wrong mindset about it can make you end up hurting yourself for not getting it right.
Making mistakes or not, it is not a criterion for labeling emotional intelligence. Even the highly emotionally intelligent person makes mistakes, at some point, the emotional mind can slip and make them make a mistake they have never made for ages.
This is ok as making mistakes and losing it sometimes is part of why we are not robots but humans.
- The idea that EI means not having challenges anymore in life.
This is a crazy killer notion. We think a lot of crazy things about what emotional intelligence is and is not.
While this point might sound a bit crazy, it is true because often we think that the moment we increase our emotional intelligence, then we will not have emotional challenges anymore… some times any kind of challenge.
Having such thoughts in mind is like living on earth while thinking as a person in dreamland because this notion is only but a dream.
That sounds absurd, but the truth remains that we will always face challenges where we will need to utilize our emotional minds well in other to get the best outcome from any challenging situation we may face.
The challenges of life will always come whether we like it or not. Some of these challenges come upon us suddenly and hit us so hard in such a way that we tend to lose ourselves in the process.
Some come in a physical form while others come in a psychological form… some people even tend to commit suicide, others go into depression and end up on a hospital bed.
How we manage our emotions during these periods in other to deal with the challenge is a test of our level of emotional intelligence. This is the role emotional intelligence plays in our lives.
- The idea that EI means being right every time.
Often we think that our decisions are the best and so we want others to think that we are right and can’t ever be wrong. Of course, emotional intelligence is not about being right all the time.
Sometimes we will be wrong and other times we will be right. We can’t do everything rightly at all times.
Your decisions might not be mistakes, but it may not be the best at all times no matter how emotionally intelligent you may be.
You may be wondering what emotions got to do with decisions, definitely, our emotions are what guides our rational mind in making decisions from one phase in our lives to another.
No matter how strong the rational mind might be, the emotional mind will always be there to interfere even when the rational mind is unable to notice its presence.
Emotional intelligence only helps to guide our decision-making process. For instance, when we are trying to figure out a solution to a problem, we may be looking at the solution from different angles.
We wouldn’t focus on only the reward, we could consider also the risk, how ethical it is and so on. In this case, we may decide to go with a particular solution which we may consider to be the best in our minds.
It is good to keep in mind that this solution may flop when implemented even after all the research and analysis put into it. This means that you can’t be right at all times.
- EI does not mean being in charge of emotions at all times.
Have you ever felt like being in charge of yourself at all times? Well, that is a part of what emotional intelligence is about, but what emotional intelligence is not is the notion of being absolutely in charge and in control each and every time.
Having such a mindset will be like suppressing ourselves and holding ourselves back from experiencing a part of life that is capable of teaching us something new.
You won’t always be in charge of all your actions 100% times at every point in time in your life and you must come to terms with that.
We can decide to focus on improving our emotional intelligence at things that we benefit from, while on others, we let them loose. This means that we can be emotionally intelligent at some things in our lives, while at some others, we are not. This is how complex EI can be when it comes to its application.
Emotional intelligence is not suppressing your emotions, in fact, it is your ability to identify the fact that you are suppressing your emotions. As humans who are not machines, we have to come to terms with the fact that we won’t always be in charge of our emotions no matter how much we try.
- The notion that one can reach a maximum altitude of emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is not about attaining a maximum level because its level is infinite. You can’t ever attain a level where you get to say I have gotten to the final.
Improving emotionally is a personal decision, and it can be a tough task because, at each point in time, you want to be aware of what is going on inside your mind as you react to things happening around you.
Doing both tasks simultaneously requires a lot of practice on your side.
Therefore, there is no such thing as a 100% level of emotional intelligence. We can only work on increasing our levels of EI from one point to another until the end of our lives because we can never get to a 100% EI or what so ever.
We will fail as humans, our ability to realize that failing is part of life and our ability to motivate ourselves to keep fighting even when we fall is a sign of emotional intelligence and a sign that we have to keep going.
Innovating our minds towards adapting to different life issues should be our focus, thereby optimizing ourselves daily.
A continuous improvement mentality, a steady upgrade of our current versions in other to have the best version of ourselves each day even as we have attained a high level of emotional intelligence should be our target.
- The notion that EI is a fixed inherent trait
One of the things emotional intelligence is not is the idea of it being inherent.
Definitely, Emotional intelligence can be learned, cultivated, taught, and developed as one wishes.
It does not work with a person’s age, it works with the mind which is why anyone at any age can be thought how to manage challenges in life if they are prepared to learn. Anyone could learn to manage how they react when changes arise, but no one is born with it.
Whether it’s an attitudinal challenge, depression, anxiety, loneliness, anger or fear management, it can be taught to the willing mind.
Even though that some temperaments are somehow inclined to exhibit an emotional intelligent attitude from an early stage, it isn’t inherent in anyone as it is determined through our consensus with ourselves to react and behave in certain ways through conscious practice.
Of course, the factor of environment, people around us, our temperament, our paradigm at each time has a large role to play on how well we are able to stay on track while trying to optimize ourselves.
If your idea of emotional intelligence is that you were not born with it and because of that you have not been able to make changes in your life, then it’s time to step up by first changing that mentality and working towards fixing your emotions.
- The notion that EI is personality-based
Sometimes we think that being emotionally intelligent also means being a good person.
EI is in no way personality-based. It is more of a neutral skill that anyone can acquire. Obviously, it does not ask if you are a good person or a bad person, this is because you are in control of yourself and you decide what you want for yourself.
Being good or bad has nothing to do with Emotional intelligence, though we as humans often focus on how to use it for good deeds.
Being good or bad is a personal decision that we all make while living through life. We also get to change from bad to good and from good to bad as we interact with different people and as we live in various environments.
This is to say that, whether good or bad, any person willing to learn can raise the level of their emotional intelligence from one level to another (low to mid-level to high) depending on how committed they are to achieving that. Of course there is a dark side of emotional intelligence.
Motives are different from one person to another as we are different as individuals. Clearly, emotional intelligence is not about being good or bad as it does not care who horns it better.
- The idea that EI is about controlling others
While it is true that a person of high emotional intelligence is capable of being manipulative- instituting the dark side of emotional intelligence, it is also true that this is only because they are able to control their own emotions so well that they use it to insinuate a feeling, while allowing others to read into it.
In retrospect, they are controlling their own emotions, and not other people’s emotions.
For instance, if you read meaning into how others blink and move their faces or body, then you will likely react to someone who intends to use their body language to get something out from you.
Of course, no one has the power to control us unless we let them. When someone shows us an angry face because they want us to do something, it is definitely up to us to decide what we wish to do.
A crying baby sends a piece of information that he or she needs something from you and then you decode and do what they ask, so also adults do the same through their body language, their use of words, their silence, their use of eye contact and the list can go on and on.
Being able to master all these takes time and takes self-decisions.
Imagine a situation where someone slaps you, and lets assume that the usual you would have slapped back, but all of a sudden you realize that you didn’t slap back not because you didn’t want to but because you decided not to.
The person must have slapped you expecting you to return the favor as usual, but because you are in charge of ‘YOU’, you decided to be calm. This is ‘you’ managing ‘you’- your emotions. Definitely, emotional intelligence is not about controlling others.
Daniel Goleman’s definition of emotional intelligence, it is about the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others.
The bottom line – what emotional intelligence is not
Emotional intelligence can be what you want it to be with regard to your understanding of your emotions and those of others.
If you must take anything away from all that has been listed above, then the one statement you should keep in your mind is the fact that Emotional Intelligence is neutral and does not specifically mean a personal trait.
Emotional intelligence has nothing to do with motivation in life, being good, optimistic, successful, happy, etc It is about managing your emotions in such a way that it works for you.
Absolutely, anyone can become emotionally intelligent if they want to. Whether good or bad, tall or short, healthy or unhealthy, small or big, name it. It has no boundaries and can be horned by anyone who desires it.
While emotional intelligence may not be a specific trait, it can help manage our reaction which can result in us managing our state of mind in different situations. So with emotional intelligence, a good person can appear perfect in the eyes of some people because of their ability to stay in control.
At the same time, with emotional intelligence, a bad person can appear good and in the eyes of others will also be seen as a changed person.
What is your take on what emotional intelligence is not… Let us know in the comment section.
Discover more from
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
