Raising your level of Emotional Intelligence to determine your Emotional Quotient or “EQ”, requires the mastery of a specific set of emotional and relational skills. Just as you need certain skills to safely operate a car, or to teach someone else to do so, you need to learn and develop the following emotional intelligence skills so that you can effectively work with and manage your own emotions and so that you can work productively with others and the emotions that they bring to the relationship.
The elements of the Emotional Intelligence Skill Set appear below:
Becoming Self-Aware
The primary and most basic skill that you must learn and develop in order to raise your EQ level is to become more Self-Aware- the first of four constructs of Emotional Intelligence. You need to know how to differentiate between certain emotions and the thoughts, words, actions or events that brought the emotions to the surface.
Learning to Self-Manage
In addition to knowing which emotions are the result of what thoughts, words, actions, and events, you must learn to manage the emotions once they have arisen. This involves making the most of positive emotions like joy, love, hope, caring, and happiness, and it requires learning to diffuse and work through negative emotions such as fear, grief, anger, anxiety, and disappointment. It is easier to channel and make use of positive emotions. The more challenging aspect of Emotional Intelligence is dealing with negative emotions, you must develop ways to avoid taking your feelings out on others, constructively dealing with other people if they are the cause of your feeling sad, angry, afraid, etc.
Acquiring Empathy
Empathy is one of the emotional intelligence competencies and essential for dealing with other people and their beliefs and emotions, particularly when they have caused you to feel a negative emotion. You need to learn and remember that other people act out of their own beliefs and emotions, and if they are not aware of or do not manage their own emotions well, then your own empathy skills will be called upon in even greater measure. When dealing with an angry co-worker, for example, you first need to listen to what he is NOT saying. He may be screaming at you, but if you listen well, you will be able to tell if his anger is directly the result of your actions or if there is an unrelated cause such as an argument he had with his spouse that morning. Once you have a handle on why he is angry, you will know better how to diffuse the situation and move on to more productive use of your time and his.
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