How do you define life? Some define it as the quality of finances, health and relationships they have and for some it is about success and failure in life in either or all of these domains. Some categorise all life into the domain of happiness and sadness while others say life is about the events that keep unfolding in front of you and how you deal with them.
The irony is that in all of this emotional intelligence does not find a mention when we want to define success. This is in spite of much stress around us in spite of having so much in life. Emotional Intelligence is an urgent need of the hour, more than a typical urban citizens understands and acknowledges it to be. There are certain aspects the emotional intelligence should be looked at and understood from and imbibed as early as possible.
Empathy – Empathy is the corner stone of excellent interpersonal skills in society. Empathy enables us to look at things from the other person’s vantage point. When we see things from ‘there and not here’, there is a paradigm shift in the way we perceive the situation.
A person who is not busy listening to the internal mental noise all the time has enough time, bandwidth and space for understanding others and listen to others, something which is a very deficient habit in people today. Empathy also gets enhanced by cautious and aware extrospection on whatever is happening around us. Putting ourselves in other person’s shoes makes us relate to the other people and let go of petty issues we might have with them. One reason for inter personal conflict is that people just want to empty their mind and not try and understand and listen to the other person empathetically. Being empathetic helps in
- Building strong relationships
- Socialising well
- enabling the emotional ability to listen and not just hear
- managing conflict ·
Compassion – Compassion is the lack of negativity against self and others. It is as natural as gravity. You dint need to be a physicist for gravity to apply to you with the help of formulae. When the clouds of negativity disperse, compassion shines naturally. Compassion is the most important ingredient to be emotionally intelligent.
Self-awareness – It is suggested to us to count until ten when you get angry and your anger will diffuse. But we seldom remember to count in that moment and anger gets expressed as it had to. We need to cultivate the awareness level in us to be able to see the emotions at the moment they arise and manipulate them in our favour. Being mindful of our emotions gives us a very sharp edge in managing our behaviour while interacting with others. In fact, high EI also helps strengthen and develop the empathy neurons eventually increasing awareness and so the equation works both ways.
Social Awarenesss – As we are able to manipulate our behaviour by being mindful of the way emotions rise in us, we are seen to be a mature individual in the society. This helps us garner support from people around us, a facility which we must have being a social animal. Empathy and self-awareness enhance our people management skills as an individual as well as, as a leader. The more we succeed in being successful in social interactions, the more emotionally intelligent we become because we see the visible benefits of being in the right behavioural zone.
Social Relationships – Being socially correct enhances social relationships as a natural outcome. Once people form an opinion about us as a no nonsense person, rather someone who is a treat to be around, it is easy to build meaningful relationships with people around. Such relationships are always a win-win and as a social animal, help us in both personal and professional front.
Clarity of mind – Lack of clarity of mind among people is prevalent in such large numbers that it is almost a pandemic for the human society. Being led by a scarcity mindset in a greed driven society and torn between so many choices on how to live a successful life, one is not able to decide on what is right or wrong in a given situation. This leads to stress and an inappropriate emotional expression many times. Being driven by a high self-esteem and abundance mindset, one is clear about the priorities in life and is able to control and manage emotional outlet in various sitiations.
Meditation – Meditation has been known to heighten awareness levels of emotions and as per plenty of research. Research also says meditators see a increased level of empathy and stress reduction. Reduced stress brings clarity to the mind and moves a person out of self centeredness thereby increasing self awareness and empathy. Therefore meditation is a very good tool to enhance emotional intelligence.
Writing – A tool less talked about but extremely effective, mapping your mind on a piece of paper through writing helps bring lot of clarity into an otherwise confused mind about the way we look at life and analyse it. While typing is also good, neuroscience says taking a pen or pencil and writing has better results.
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