What is Emotional intelligence – Why it is important in Life

“There is no separation of mind and emotions; emotions, thinking, and learning are all linked. -Eric Jensen“

Life would be more fun at home and at work if we all were to give more attention to our levels of emotional intelligence. Everything we do in life is almost influenced by our emotions. Imagine life without emotions? It wouldn’t be much fun given that the imperfection in life is what makes it perfect.

How emotionally in control we are is a measure of our level of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is an intelligence that focuses more on how our emotion affects our actions and reactions before and after an incident – how we react towards ourselves and others during the cause of an incident.

It is mainly the management of emotions ranging from your reaction when:

• we are angry,
• we are stressed,
• we are under anxiety,
• we are under pressure,
• we are depressed,
• we are seized by fear of the unknown, we are filled with the excitement of the outcome of an event… being a maniac becomes a high possibility

Emotional intelligence can mean a different thing at a particular time, but it centers more on the emotional reaction towards life challenges, issues, and situations at a given point in time.

What is emotional intelligence?

So, what is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is the common sense wisdom to be aware of oneself, understand and be able to sense the emotions of oneself and others including managing how to react towards oneself and others.

Emotional intelligence is a skill that helps to guide our thought processes, our actions and reactions towards ourselves, others and our environment at large. Lets put it this way, any decision made solely by the rational mind without the contribution of the emotional mind tends not to be very solid.

Our Values, commitments, determinations, dreams, visions, and goals, etc are all guided by the emotional mind and the moment we go against them, we tend to feel the pain emotionally.

Daniel Goleman in his book ‘Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ’ describes emotional intelligence as that which includes self-control, zeal and persistence and ability to motivate oneself. He also described it as”the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing emotion well in ourselves and in our relationships”

So apparently, it’s a term that centers more on ‘self’ which gives us an edge to living life better by guiding our emotions, thoughts, and attitudes and in other cases gives us the sense to compromise and adapt in other to suit different conditions or situations life presents.

Peter Salovey and John Mayer defined it as “the ability to monitor one’s own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior”

Our ability to control things happening within our minds can open up ways for us to control things happening around us, this includes understanding others because we all need each other in other to survive. We are just the first point of call as its almost impossible to understand others without first understanding ourselves. it begins with an inner awareness of what our strengths and weaknesses are, and how they affect our everyday moves and decisions.

Emotional Intelligence affects our relationship with ourselves and others in life

Emotional intelligence goes as far as affecting us in our relationships with the people we meet at work, school, recreational places, and in our families. It coordinates our response towards different issues — our techniques and strategy to approaching life challenges.  It can be related to our success level in life. It affects everything we do in life including our decision-making process.

Imagine having a spouse or friend who whenever an issue comes up easily gets angered and wouldn’t give you a chance to explain things before rushing into conclusions. Another instance is when you have a friend who always feels and thinks that their opinion is always the best and wouldn’t give you a chance to say what you think.

And yet they say they love you dearly. What of a case where you have a friend who lacks a simple understanding of how to communicate whenever you are trying to resolve an issue by having a conversation with them.

They just feel everything is an argument, even the smallest of problems get blown out of proportion by them and you are left wondering in your head if this person reasons at all. We all come across such persons in our lives. Sometimes it can be frustrating because of their inability to put their emotions in check.

There are so many scenarios where this is the case. Even at work, some bosses think that the best way to gain respect is by commanding and shouting at workers every time. And they feel they are sending across the right message by doing so. Or an employee instead of settling a personal issue with a coworker decides to spread the misdeed of the other just to shame and embarrass them — within their heart, they have won.

The truth is that a lot of people run from the concept of emotional intelligence because they do not want anyone telling them that they are out of control when in their minds they think they are in control.

Impact of emotional intelligence on Success  

We define success in ways that suits our thinking. We can achieve success in little things and also in big things. The difference between one successful person and another is in the size of their mindset. How we set our minds is a part determinate of how far we can go in life.

Whether small or big success, success remains a success.

We can be successful in the workplace or our area of specialization or at our own business, but that doesn’t mean that we are emotionally intelligent.

Being financially successful doesn’t mean a high level of emotional intelligence. You can be making lots of money out of your workplace, you can be wealthy, yet that doesn’t mean you are emotionally intelligent.

When success is defined in terms of finance, money becomes a yardstick to measure it.

Emotional intelligence is very important, especially in business or at a work-place where you get to interact with people of diverse mindsets and reasoning.

Things can go wrong, a project can fail, a boss might try to pull you down, a coworker might try to belittle you, a lot of things can go wrong in a work setting which in turn can affect the mind and then forces it to go into a deep-thinking mood, sometimes putting the mind in disarray.

Meaning that if you have failed to train your mind to absorb adversity, you might get traumatized when related events occur.

Emotional Intelligence  for employer and employee

A clear picture is a case where no matter what an employee who gives in her/his best to get their job done is always not appreciated by their boss, instead s/he is bad-mouthed and shouted on. No single appreciation comes from this boss month to month. 

The employees end up crying each time they return home from work. Such things are bound to happen especially when that boss does these things out of their upbringing and lacks emotional intelligence. Of course, some bosses can be emotionally intelligent and intentional frustrate someone which is the Darkside of emotional intelligence.

A CEO who understands the need for emotional intelligence in a work setting wants a leader or manager who can put others in their place without disrespecting the worker or abusing their power in the process.

They want leaders who think about the opinion and contributions of co-workers and team members before making final decisions on certain issues. This is because the (CEO) won’t be there monitoring situations, so they want someone whom they can trust to do the right thing for the company, for the workers and the customers without anyone monitoring all their moves.

Emotional Intelligence when dealing with Customers

Technical skills are important, but you don’t use technical skills to relate with customers.

Customers don’t care about what you know technically, all they want is for their needs to be solved.

And if you try solving their needs without making them feel important and loved, then the next time they might try your competitor.

That is a loss for the company and no management wants to lose customers. If a good leader with an understanding of how emotional intelligence operates is able to instill the need for good customer and coworker relationships, then an employee who got things wrong at some time will learn to change their approach towards work next time.

Remember everything in life revolves around emotions. So even as you are trying to sell to a product, service or concept to a customer/client, you are trying to get to their emotional mind. If that customer is qualified (financially capable) to make a purchase, then s/he will buy the moment you are able to hit that emotional spot.

Emotions are the reason why we can easily sell to the people we know compared to the people we don’t know. This is because their guards are down already before we even begin to talk, and all they think about is how to make us happy, so they end up buying from us with a belief that they may need our help someday also. Invariably, we are selling emotions.

According to Daniel Goleman “As much as 80% of adult success comes from EQ.” –

Your ability to control your emotions in whatever you do can help you achieve a lot in the long run. It can help bring you a promotion faster than you may think. The panel screening you might not consider just your technical skill but also your soft skill before they reach an agreement. They want people who can coordinate others in a good respectful manner and also achieve their job objectives.

Humans are the hardest resources to manage, be it at home or at work. If you can raise your emotional intelligence just a little, then you have scored a point on how you will be perceived by coworkers and also the management.

On your way to achieving success, challenges will come, failure will, people will become a hindrance at one point or the other, your ability to stay calm and to keep moving is very vital and this is where emotional intelligence comes into play. Because sometimes you may need to act like a fool in other to reach your goals in life. Its impact on our ability to achieve success in different phases of our lives cannot be overemphasized.

The Human Emotional Brain

The human brain is made up of the rational and emotional parts. We often approach problems considering only the rational part with a belief that our analysis and assumptions would work out just the way we predetermined in our minds.

So, along the line, when we encounter challenges, often tough for the rational mind to deal with alone, we are forced to feel defeated, sometimes we tend to want to lose hope.

We may get stressed out and feel we are done and often might want to abandon what we have started in other to relieve ourselves of the emotional stress that comes with failure.

Meaning that we neglected the emotional part of the brain and gave a high focus on the rational part.

But that is simply adversity which requires an emotional strength built up by an emotionally intelligent mind.

When we lose money, we need emotional intelligence to stay calm, when we win big, profit or gain, we need emotional intelligence to stay calm. Because the effect of such events starts in our emotional brain. It begins from the emotional brain, then it turns into a feeling and the next thing we discover that our mood has changed which can last for long if not checked.

When you plan with only the rational side of the brain it then means that you are one hundred percent immune to any such things as feelings and emotions, but who is? No one is, this is the reason why improving and increasing the intelligence of our emotions is very important.

As it would be prepared and waiting ahead of eventualities- because they will surely come. And if your mind isn’t ready ahead of time and waiting like a missile defense system, then chances are that you will be hit hard when those psychological issues come knocking.

Also note that missile defense systems don’t hold up all missiles coming to it, what they do is reduce the chances of having a catastrophe in case any missile manages to elude it.

A need to re-educate the emotional mind

Emotional intelligence is a critical concept which a lot of us neglect as we grow and some of us still do till today.

We often do not sit down to analyze how we might get affected when challenges that can affect our emotional minds erupt. As a result, when they eventually come, they hit us hard and often halt our progress.

This is why there is a need for us to reeducate our emotional mind which is the brain box of all emotional outbursts.

For instance, emotions can come in a moment of happiness where you get over-excited and become overwhelmed by the outcome of an event, then you find yourself saying things and making promises you would never have made when in your right mindset. Sometimes you even regret ever saying such things. Like trying to get over a heartbreak which is a very difficult thing to deal with.

But in the end, we all have to learn to control such situations. It can be learned if we try, though it may not be easy. Being aware of our situation makes it possible for us to have a chance at working at it.

Your level of Emotional intelligence shows itself in your character, behavior, and attitude toward life situations at home, at work, when amongst friends…

• how you react towards life problems and issues that usually arise often,
• how you treat yourself and other people, how you control your anger and fear,
• how you manage your relationship or marriage,

All these and many more encompasses and describes the need for re-educating our emotional minds

To find harmony in our lives, we must try to consciously work on our emotions. as it’s an essential part of human life which a lot of us tend to neglect.

Emotional intelligence gives us a harmonized picture of life in general. It helps us to cope with different life challenges that may be psychological in form.

It prepares the mind for the worst life scenario. Funny enough, emotional intelligence is broad that one can sometimes be good in a particular area and bad in another. It’s an infinite work-in-progress situation.

There is a need to teach children from a tender age about emotional intelligence right from home. This will prepare their minds and reduce their chances of getting depressed at a very young age.

For parents to be able to help their children understand this concept even in the tiniest possible form, parents must get to understand the concept and the need for emotional intelligence first.

Raising Emotional awareness

Emotional intelligence is a whole lot of things and it says a different thing in a given time. It gives you an edge not to leave your mind vulnerable to unforeseen/foreseen emotional circumstances, it gives you the knowledge of building walls and boundaries which can help prevent damage to the emotional mind.

Emotional intelligence is like a hard hat, it protects the mind and immune system from severe injury and damage which come in the form of psychological trauma and depression. You can checkmate your level of emotional intelligence and that of others when situations unfold themselves.

We will be making an intelligent decision if we choose to raise our awareness and our level of emotional intelligence.

We should strive to improve our emotional minds to be able to get the best out of life. Doing so allows us to see and approach life more differently.

Being aware of the concept of emotional intelligence is the first step to increasing the intelligence of your emotions. A book worth reading is ‘Emotional intelligence: why it can matter more than IQ’ by Daniel Goleman.

Think about it, how does your emotion affect your reaction towards yourself and others around you? Do you usually think before you act or do you allow your untrained emotions to do the thinking for you all the time?

Indeed, we can’t get it one hundred percent right all the time, as no mortal is perfect. We all make mistakes and sometimes circumstances force may us to go contrary to our decisions.

This is a part reason why we must try our best to work on our emotional mind so as to educate it to be more intelligent daily. You benefit yourself and others when you increase your level of emotional intelligence. It’s also possible to be highly emotionally intelligent and not be aware. This is why it is important to raise awareness so that you can have more conscious control.

“When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life”- Tara Meyer

Emotional intelligence mind training is an infinite life training process. By increasing the intelligence of your emotions, you improve the quality of your life by a certain level. Also, you improve the quality of the lives of others who come in close contact with you because ‘association’ can be contagious.

Are you aware of the concept of emotional intelligence? Do you think Emotional intelligence is an important skill everyone should learn? Is your level of emotional intelligence high or low? Are you working on yours? Tell us what you think by leaving a moment below.

Also, check out this post on the dark side of emotional intelligence.