Emotion and Emotional Intelligence: How Our Feelings Shape Our Lives

All human beings experience a range of emotions throughout their lives. However, we don't experience these feelings the same way. Two humans can react very differently to the same situation, meaning that there's so much more to discover about how we feel about and react to our external environment. These different ways of feeling and interacting with people around us based on our emotions can be referred to as emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence shows our capacity to recognize, manage, and express our emotions, whether it's to ourselves or in interpersonal relationships. In the last twenty years, there has been a bigger focus on emotional intelligence, as research has shown it's crucial for personal and professional success. In this article, we'll take a closer look at how the way we feel shapes our lives and what role emotional intelligence plays in our everyday lives.

How Are Humans Managing Emotions

Depending on the situations we experience, we feel certain emotions. Whether it's joy, calm, anger, fear, sadness, shame, or guilt, these emotions are a completely natural reaction to events in our lives. Managing emotions refers to a healthy level of control when we are experiencing these emotions. For instance, if you feel angry that your boss hasn't given you the promotion you expected, you'll need to act accordingly. Screaming and throwing things around you would only worsen the situation.

To be able to manage our own emotions, we'll need to understand them first. Developing emotional skills that lead to higher emotional intelligence starts with awareness of how we feel and why. This healthy control shouldn't be confused with repressing your emotions. Emotions are energy in motion, which means that stopping that energy would lead to a range of negative consequences. You might experience burnout, anxiety, or panic attacks if you're not dealing with your emotions in the right way.

If this is something that you need help with, a mental health professional can assist you in this journey of reconnecting with yourself. Through therapy, you will strengthen your emotional abilities by better perceiving emotions and becoming more self-aware in general. Such guidance can be extremely helpful for those individuals who are unaware of their emotional states and struggle with controlling their words and reactions.

Aspects of Emotional Intelligence

Key aspects of emotional intelligence need to be considered if you want to understand someone's emotional intelligence better. These are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and managing relationships. These skills can be quite beneficial for you in both your personal and professional life, helping you achieve a range of objectives and become at peace with yourself.

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is at the heart of emotional intelligence. It can be divided into three equal parts to understand it better: accurate self-assessment, emotional self-awareness, and self-confidence.

Accurate self-assessment involves providing a realistic assessment of one's strengths and limitations. Underestimating or overestimating yourself is a sign of a lack of self-awareness. Emotional self-awareness involves being able to read and comprehend one's emotions and recognize their influence on relationships and work performance. Self-confidence involves having a strong and positive sense of one's own worth. If your inner critic guides you towards making decisions, it probably means you have low self-confidence.

The capacity to critically reflect on oneself is the first step and crucial component in these domains. In other words, to be self-aware means to know your strengths and weaknesses, recognize your own emotions, and believe in yourself.

Self-management

Just like self-awareness, self-management is made up of equally important aspects. These are self-control, transparency, adaptability, achievement orientation, and initiative. Possessing these five skills means you are very good at managing yourself.

Self-control

Self-control involves recognizing and managing erratic emotions and impulses. Examples of such emotions are fear and anger. If you lack self-control, you'll probably lose control over your emotions and reactions in situations where you feel that way. Transparency involves upholding moral principles and managing oneself and obligations. Not staying true to yourself and the value you appreciate in life is a sign of a lack of transparency.

Adaptability

Adaptability is the capacity to change with the times and overcome challenges. We live in a dynamic world in which changes are a constant. Not being able to adapt to it will have negative results on your emotional well-being. Achievement orientation refers to the motivation to reach an internal standard of excellence. Being able to manage yourself in today's world also means being able to achieve your own expectations and goals. Each person's expectations can be different, but achievement orientation is something we all need to develop to reach success across different areas.

Initiative

Lastly, there is initiative. It is the willingness to take action and seize opportunities. An individual who doesn't take action will probably not get the outcome they deserve. Being able to go after what you want is a sign of emotional intelligence.

Unlike most types of intelligence, emotional intelligence requires us to be sensitive to others in our environment. An emotionally intelligent person will be socially aware and care about their loved ones and the community they live in.

Social Awareness

That is why empathy is the basis of social awareness. It refers to the capacity to comprehend and actively care about the concerns of others. Obviously, this doesn't imply that you should put other people's needs above yours, but it requires individuals to act in a way that is beneficial to others as well. Examples of social awareness are helping the neighbor in need, volunteering in the animal shelter, contributing to a cause that matters to you, or being supportive of people in your life.

How we feel not only impacts our inner world but also has a great effect on people near us. If you're not capable of managing emotions, it will be very challenging to build healthy relationships with others. After all, each relationship requires emotional awareness.

Relationship Management

Even if we mostly talk about relationship management in our professional life, you will still need to show respect, compassion, social awareness, transparency, and many other emotional and social skills, which are all aspects of any emotional intelligence model. For example, if you're unable to manage stress at work, it means the lack of your emotional and social competencies is interfering with your performance and relationships. That is why many businesses believe that measuring emotional intelligence can help them find the right employees.

Understanding emotions is crucial for your well-being. It directly impacts your social intelligence or your ability to understand others. With emotion regulation and good social skills, you have the right skill set to become a leader in your organization or community and inspire people around you. After all, emotional intelligence is the base of your well-being. How much attention you put on it will have a direct impact on everything in your life.

Just imagine if you've always wanted to become successful in your career and you did everything you could to reach that specific position in your company. By not working on your emotions, you might feel so stressed out that you never reach that goal because you're wasting energy on combating certain emotional states. Or even worse, you might get that desired position and be so drained out that you're unable to enjoy your success and celebrate it with others.

Low Vs. High Emotional Intelligence

Being emotionally intelligent means being skilled in emotion regulation and finding the best way to express how you feel, depending on the situation you're in. To learn more about your emotional intelligence, you can find different emotional intelligence tests online that can give you a good place to start. The most popular example of such testing is the Caruso emotional intelligence test, which can be accessed online for free.

Such a test can help you understand not only how emotionally intelligent you are but also demonstrate which emotional skills you possess and which you lack. For instance, you might discover you're excellent at self-awareness but lack social skills. This could explain why you don't get well with your coworkers and motivate you to seek different approaches to communicating with your environment, which could lead to more beneficial relationships.

Unlike cognitive intelligence tests, emotional intelligence tests don't provide one number that puts you somewhere on the scale of intelligence. Instead, you'll get insights on the ways you're perceiving emotions, how good you're at social relationships, etc. Low emotional intelligence refers to people who are not in touch with their emotions and their inner world. They have a hard time understanding their emotional reactions, and their intellectual ability is focused more on the rational side instead of the emotional. Also, their limited emotional knowledge prevents them from developing quality social and romantic relationships.

If you've never taken a test to find out your emotional quotient, keep in mind that the results will cover different areas of emotional intelligence. Use the results as guidelines for areas you can improve, whether it's emotional regulation, expressing how you feel in front of others, or other emotional competencies. Whichever trait emotional intelligence test results show you lack, seek ideas and tools to develop this trait. For instance, if you lack self-management skills, you can focus more on aligning your efforts with your desires to reach the outcome you hope for.

How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

Building emotional intelligence takes time, but it's one of the most beneficial journeys you'll take during your lifetime. Expressing emotions you feel helps you improve your mental and physical health, but it also connects you on a deeper level with people you care about. If mastering emotional intelligence is one of your goals, there are many techniques you can try to improve it.

First of all, you'll need to work on emotion perception. When talking about emotional perception or emotional understanding, it requires being aware of how you feel and why. Start paying closer attention to your emotional expressions. Is it a positive emotion you're experiencing? Anytime you start feeling something, pause and try to identify the emotion.

Once you've become aware of different emotional reactions, it's time to improve your emotion management. In other words, you'll test out different emotion regulation strategies to find out which works for you best. Keep in mind that the strategies can vary depending on the emotion. For instance, if you're experiencing anger, you might decide to go for a long walk all by yourself instead of having an argument with your partner. On the other hand, if you're experiencing fear, you might want to call a friend and spend some time with them.

As one of the main traits of strong emotional intelligence is being socially aware, you will want to practice active listening as well. Emotionally intelligent people can read other people's facial expressions, which allows them to adjust the power dynamics and have more success in interactions. However, to be good at identifying the emotions of another person, you'll first need to become skilled at understanding your own. This is why emotional intelligence impacts your interpersonal skills and goes beyond just intimate connections.

There are different techniques you can try out to connect with your emotional states. Meditation, therapy, journaling, breathwork, long walks in nature, and art are the most common techniques to recognize and manage one's emotions. Your emotional intelligence is not static. It grows as you start working on changing the personality traits that prevent you from being emotionally intelligent. Most importantly, keep in mind there isn't a negative emotion. As humans, we are made to experience all emotions. Instead of thinking about the concept of negative emotion, focus on finding the right way to express that uncomfortable emotion.

Conclusion

Emotional intelligence is the key to a balanced and fulfilling life. It helps you understand yourself, navigate relationships, and handle challenges with grace. Developing emotional intelligence enhances your social skills, mental well-being, and overall health, paving the way for stronger connections and greater life satisfaction. Remember, it's never too late to improve your emotional awareness and build the life you aspire to. Every step toward understanding your emotions brings you closer to your goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence refers to one's ability to recognize, manage, and express one's emotions, as well as one's ability to do that with others. Emotional intelligence (EI) is responsible for our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Besides helping you understand yourself better, emotional intelligence helps you connect with the external world in a more significant way. Unlike most intelligence types, emotional intelligence takes into account individual differences and highlights strengths and weaknesses when it comes to an individual's emotional intelligence results.

What Is the Difference Between Emotional and Social Intelligence?

Although both intelligence types impact each other in numerous ways, there is a distinction between them. Emotional intelligence begins with the individual and then spreads into the collective. In other words, to be emotionally intelligent, a person will first need to comprehend their own emotional processes. On the other hand, social intelligence refers to how well we recognize and understand people around us and their needs. Social intelligence is based on partnerships, groups, or collective, whereas emotional intelligence is based on the individual. Both types of intelligence cannot exist without one another, but they refer to different areas of our lives and require different skills.

Who Is Considered a Highly Emotionally Intelligent Person?

Emotional intelligence takes into account individual differences between all of us. That is why the self-report test results are almost always presented in a way that covers different aspects of emotional intelligence. General emotional intelligence requires self-awareness, self-management, awareness of others, and successfully managing relationships. The better you are at these skills, the higher your emotional intelligence is. If you're uncertain about trait emotional intelligence covers, you can do a self-report test and gain valuable insights. Use the results to grow emotionally, become a better support for your loved ones, and act and think in more alignment with your emotions.