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Emotional Intelligence, or EI, describes an ability or capacity to
perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of one's self, and of others.
"Anyone can become angry -
that is easy.
But to be angry with the right person,
to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose,
and in the right way - that is not easy."
Aristotle
Emotional Intelligence is about being able to perceive, assess and manage our emotions. Identifying emotions, that is, knowing what we are feeling is very difficult for some people. For a variety of reasons, some people are quite unaware of their emotional world. Anxiety, depression and angry outbursts can all be signs of having trouble identifying and then managing emotions well. Some people can identify emotions fairly well, but have difficulty managing them. For example, many people know that they are often feeling "stressed," but have a hard time determining what is needed to decrease stress/anxiety. Knowing how to manage our emotions - what to do about them - can be very challenging and is something that many of us have not been taught how to do. In school, we develop our knowledge of science, history, math, etc. Most of us are not, however, taught about identifying and managing emotions.
Research on EI shows that extremely smart people can flounder through life, while those with only modest intelligence can do surprisingly well. This is because of factors such as self-awareness, self-discipline and empathy - a different way of being smart - which affects how we make decisions and interact with others. This part of life is very, very important with regard to our success and contentment. Think about the importance of having the ability to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulses and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from overtaking the ability to think; to empathize and to hope. These abilities are about Emotional Intelligence, not about Intelligence Quotient.
To take an EI quiz, click here (this is an informal quiz offered by About.com)
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 Are you interested in improving your EI? Just work on being more aware of what you're feeling and take the time to determine how to manage the feeling.
For example, if you're feeling frustrated, irritable, or angry, give some thought to what that's about and what you need to do to manage your anger/frustration. Try exercise, talking, writing, venting and/or punching a pillow.
We all have anger, stress and other emotions to manage and there are many resources for learning the skills required to do a good job at this. Here are some links to tips that are available on my website.
Anxiety and stress reducing tips
Anger management tips
Working through grief/loss
All the best,
Kristen
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