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wikiHow is where trusted research and expert knowledge come together. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Categories Health Psychological Health Emotions and Feelings How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence.

Download Article Everything you need to know to raise your EQ. Co-authored by Jennifer Butler, MSW and Annabelle Reyes Last Updated: November 14, Fact Checked.

What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence EQ is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your emotions, as well as the ability to perceive and respond to the emotions of others.

Ways to improve EQ include recognizing and noting your feelings, practicing mindfulness, building empathy, and working on regulating emotions. Higher EQ levels are linked to improved performance at work or school, better relationships with others, and an increased ability to manage stressful situations.

All rights reserved. wikiHow, Inc. is the copyright holder of this image under U. and international copyright laws. This image may not be used by other entities without the express written consent of wikiHow, Inc. Emotional intelligence EQ is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your emotions.

It also involves being able to perceive and respond to the emotions of others. Emotional intelligence consists of 5 key components. These components are self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills. Self-awareness : The ability to identify and understand your own emotions and how they affect your life experiences.

Identify and make note of your emotional reactions throughout the day. The ability to recognize and name your own emotions is an important indicator of a high EQ. Try starting a journal to keep track of your emotions and reflect on their causes.

What emotions arose when this happens, and how did you respond? Maybe you felt embarrassed, which led you to be quiet for the rest of the meeting.

Or, maybe you felt angry and stomped out of the room. Writing about the emotion and its cause will help you identify your triggers so you can be prepared for them if they come up again.

Pay attention to your body. Instead of ignoring the physical manifestations of your emotions, start listening to them. Our minds and bodies are not separate, and they affect each other deeply. You can raise your EQ by learning how to read physical cues that clue you into what emotions you're feeling.

For example: Stress might feel like a knot in your stomach, a tight chest, or quick breathing. Practice Mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness involves focusing on the present moment and being intensely aware of your thoughts, sensations, and surroundings.

Feel the flow of your breath, and let any thoughts that come up pass without judgment. Learn to manage your emotions.

Deep breathing exercises can help calm stress and anxiety in emotionally-charged situations. Start by taking a slow, deep breath through your nose, letting the air flow all the way down into your belly. Then, let the air flow out through your mouth, and repeat. You might find it helpful to mentally count to 5 as you breathe in and then count to 5 again as you exhale in order to keep a steady pace.

If you start to feel the tension rising, step away from the situation to cool off. Additionally, research suggests that people with a high emotional quotient EQ are more innovative and have higher job satisfaction than those with lower EQs.

Emotional intelligence is a set of skills and behaviors. While some people will be naturally more adept at certain aspects, EI can be learned, developed, and enhanced. The four main components of EI are self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and social skills:.

Self-awareness is the ability to identify and understand your own emotions and the impact we have on others. Our emotions impact our mood, behaviors, performance, and interactions with other people. According to Tasha Eurich, an organizational psychologist, researcher, and author of Insight , people who are self-aware tend to be more confident and more creative.

They also make better decisions, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively. Self-awareness opens the door to self-regulation, which is the ability to manage these emotions and behaviors. These people tend toward a positive outlook and are adaptable to a variety of situations and circumstances.

So, companies — or managers — that have high turnover rates should take a look in the mirror. Social awareness is our ability to understand the emotions of others and a key component of this is empathy.

Jamil Zaki, a Stanford professor and author of The War for Kindness , describes empathy as having three components — identifying what others feel, sharing this emotion, and wishing to improve their experience.

People with strong social awareness tend toward kindness. These skills, which include influence, conflict management, teamwork, and the ability to inspire others, make it possible to build and maintain healthy relationships in all parts of your life.

People with strong social skills can make an enormous difference on a team and in organizations because they understand others and act on this knowledge to move people toward a common goal.

To improve your emotional intelligence, you need to start at the beginning, with self-awareness. Andrews cites a study by Tasha Eurich which found that 95 percent of participants gave themselves high marks in self-awareness.

However, using more empirical measures of self-awareness, the study found that only percent of the cohort was truly self-aware. This is not despite their authority, but quite possibly because of it. Eurich wrote in the Harvard Business Review that the more power someone obtains, the more likely they are to be overconfident about how well they know themselves.

After all, those at the top of the chain have fewer people giving them feedback. Managers are insulated from criticism, and as a result, self-awareness sinks.

Receiving honest, constructive feedback is key to becoming self-aware. Andrews notes that a degree emotional intelligence assessment can be a very effective way to gain insight into your EI-components and the impact you have on others. Jan 12 Tags: Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional intelligence fuels your performance both in the workplace and in your personal life, but it starts with you. From your confidence, empathy and optimism to your social skills and self-control, understanding and managing your own emotions can accelerate success in all areas of your life.

No matter what professional field you are in, whether you manage a team of two or 20, or even just yourself, realising how effective you are at controlling your own emotional energy is a great starting point. Some of these tips we follow ourselves and others have been revealed to us by our amazing clients and partners who know how to motivate and inspire their teams but first and foremost, themselves.

Emotional Intelligence 2. Self-awareness 3. Self-management 4. Motivation 5. Empathy 6. Social skills 7. What to avoid. Put simply, Emotional Intelligence is how well individuals identify and manage their own emotions and react to the emotions of others. Becoming more emotionally conscious allows us to grow and gain a deeper understanding of who we are, enabling us to communicate better with others and build stronger relationships.

We suggest starting with these initial 8 tips, they provide a good starting point to discovering the foundations of your emotional intelligence. To reconnect, try setting a timer for various points during the day. Pay attention to where that emotion is showing up as a physical feeling in your body and what the sensation feels like.

The more you practice, the more it will become second nature. Managing our emotions becomes easier once we become more conscious of how we react to them. This is a state of existence where your own opinions are constantly re-enforced by people with similar viewpoints.

Take time to read the other side of the story and have your views challenged even if you still feel they are right. This will help you understand other people and be more receptive to new ideas. People who experience positive emotions are generally more resilient and more likely to have fulfilling relationships, which will help them move past adversity.

Reflecting on negative feelings is just as important as reflecting on the positive. Understanding why you feel negative is key to becoming a fully-rounded individual, who is more able to deal with negative issues in the future. Life throws various situations our way, with most of us experiencing some sort of stress on a regular basis.

A key component of emotional intelligence, self-awareness is the ability to recognise and understand your own character, moods and emotions and their effect on others. It can help highlight areas for self-improvement, make you better at adapting and can limit wrongful decisions.

Ask them where your strengths and weaknesses lie, write down what they say and compare it.

Just because you know you should do something doesn't mean you will—especially when you become overwhelmed by stress, which can override your best intentions. In order to permanently change behavior in ways that stand up under pressure, you need to learn how to overcome stress in the moment, and in your relationships, in order to remain emotionally aware.

The key skills for building your EQ and improving your ability to manage emotions and connect with others are:. In order for you to engage your EQ, you must be able to use your emotions to make constructive decisions about your behavior.

When you become overly stressed, you can lose control of your emotions and the ability to act thoughtfully and appropriately. Think about a time when stress has overwhelmed you.

Was it easy to think clearly or make a rational decision? Probably not. When you become overly stressed, your ability to both think clearly and accurately assess emotions—your own and other people's—becomes compromised.

Emotions are important pieces of information that tell you about yourself and others, but in the face of stress that takes us out of our comfort zone, we can become overwhelmed and lose control of ourselves.

With the ability to manage stress and stay emotionally present, you can learn to receive upsetting information without letting it override your thoughts and self-control. You'll be able to make choices that allow you to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.

Managing stress is just the first step to building emotional intelligence. The science of attachment indicates that your current emotional experience is likely a reflection of your early life experience.

Your ability to manage core feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy often depends on the quality and consistency of your early life emotional experiences. If your primary caretaker as an infant understood and valued your emotions, it's likely your emotions have become valuable assets in adult life.

But, if your emotional experiences as an infant were confusing, threatening or painful, it's likely you've tried to distance yourself from your emotions. But being able to connect to your emotions—having a moment-to-moment connection with your changing emotional experience—is the key to understanding how emotion influences your thoughts and actions.

Do you experience feelings that flow, encountering one emotion after another as your experiences change from moment to moment? Are your emotions accompanied by physical sensations that you experience in places like your stomach, throat, or chest? Do you experience individual feelings and emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy, each of which is evident in subtle facial expressions?

Can you experience intense feelings that are strong enough to capture both your attention and that of others? Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision making? In order to build EQ—and become emotionally healthy—you must reconnect to your core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them.

You can achieve this through the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment—and without judgment.

The cultivation of mindfulness has roots in Buddhism, but most religions include some type of similar prayer or meditation technique. Mindfulness helps shift your preoccupation with thought toward an appreciation of the moment, your physical and emotional sensations, and brings a larger perspective on life.

Mindfulness calms and focuses you, making you more self-aware in the process. It's important that you learn how to manage stress first, so you'll feel more comfortable reconnecting to strong or unpleasant emotions and changing how you experience and respond to your feelings.

You can develop your emotional awareness by using HelpGuide's free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit. Social awareness enables you to recognize and interpret the mainly nonverbal cues others are constantly using to communicate with you.

These cues let you know how others are really feeling, how their emotional state is changing from moment to moment, and what's truly important to them. When groups of people send out similar nonverbal cues, you're able to read and understand the power dynamics and shared emotional experiences of the group.

In short, you're empathetic and socially comfortable. To build social awareness, you need to recognize the importance of mindfulness in the social process.

After all, you can't pick up on subtle nonverbal cues when you're in your own head, thinking about other things, or simply zoning out on your phone.

Social awareness requires your presence in the moment. While many of us pride ourselves on an ability to multitask, this means that you'll miss the subtle emotional shifts taking place in other people that help you fully understand them.

Working well with others is a process that begins with emotional awareness and your ability to recognize and understand what other people are experiencing.

Become aware of how effectively you use nonverbal communication. It's impossible to avoid sending nonverbal messages to others about what you think and feel.

The many muscles in the face, especially those around the eyes, nose, mouth and forehead, help you to wordlessly convey your own emotions as well as read other peoples' emotional intent.

The emotional part of your brain is always on—and even if you ignore its messages—others won't. Recognizing the nonverbal messages that you send to others can play a huge part in improving your relationships.

Use humor and play to relieve stress. Humor, laughter and play are natural antidotes to stress. They lessen your burdens and help you keep things in perspective. Laughter brings your nervous system into balance, reducing stress, calming you down, sharpening your mind and making you more empathic.

Learn to see conflict as an opportunity to grow closer to others. Conflict and disagreements are inevitable in human relationships. Two people can't possibly have the same needs, opinions, and expectations at all times. However, that needn't be a bad thing.

Resolving conflict in healthy, constructive ways can strengthen trust between people. When conflict isn't perceived as threatening or punishing, it fosters freedom, creativity, and safety in relationships. Learn why emotional intelligence matters in romantic relationships.

Tools for managing emotions and bringing your life into balance. Parenting strategies to help you build empathy and emotional awareness. To be an effective leader, emotional intelligence is an essential skill. BetterHelp makes starting therapy easy. Take the assessment and get matched with a professional, licensed therapist.

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Return Relationships. Return Aging Well. Return Handbook. Healthy Living Aging in Place Sleep Online Therapy. About Us Meet Our Team Our Story Jeanne Segal, Ph. This will help you understand other people and be more receptive to new ideas.

People who experience positive emotions are generally more resilient and more likely to have fulfilling relationships, which will help them move past adversity. Reflecting on negative feelings is just as important as reflecting on the positive.

Understanding why you feel negative is key to becoming a fully-rounded individual, who is more able to deal with negative issues in the future. Life throws various situations our way, with most of us experiencing some sort of stress on a regular basis.

A key component of emotional intelligence, self-awareness is the ability to recognise and understand your own character, moods and emotions and their effect on others. It can help highlight areas for self-improvement, make you better at adapting and can limit wrongful decisions.

Ask them where your strengths and weaknesses lie, write down what they say and compare it. Start by writing down what happened to you at the end of every day, how it made you feel and how you dealt with it. Periodically, look back over your comments and take note of any trends.

The difficulty is keeping this driving force in mind when adversity appears. All too often people start a project but fail to complete it because they lose their motivation to do so.

Take time to understand what motivates you and use it to push you across the finish line. Give yourself a break and make a conscious effort to meditate, do yoga or read — a little escapism works wonders. And then the next time you have an emotional reaction to something, try to pause before you react.

Self-aware individuals are able to recognise their emotions as they occur. Practice naming and accepting the feelings — naming the feeling puts you in control. Try to choose an appropriate reaction to the feeling rather than just reacting to it.

After all, your subconscious has been learning which path to take throughout your entire life. Which means taking responsibility for your own behaviour and well-being as well as controlling emotional outbursts.

So jolt your physical body out of routine by attending an exercise class or try channelling a busy mind with a puzzle or a book — anything to break your existing routine. Ensuring that you create a schedule and stick to it is extremely important if you want to complete tasks effectively.

Once you make this promise, it becomes harder to procrastinate. This sounds like an easy one but regulating what you eat and drink can have a massive effect on your emotional state, so try your best to maintain a balanced diet. Funnel your emotional energy into something productive.

However, when you do, rather than vent it on something futile, turn it into motivation instead. Try to be mindful that people are only human and will make mistakes. By offering your trust, you are inviting people to offer their trust in return. A personal skills aspect of emotional intelligence, self-motivation refers to our inner drive to achieve and improve our commitment to our goals, our readiness to act on opportunities and our overall optimism.

So grab a pen and paper and have a think about where you want to be and set some targets for yourself. Base them on your strengths and make them relevant to you and ultimately, make them exciting and achievable. This task alone is enough to get you instantly motivated!

Achievement boosts confidence and as self-confidence rises so does the ability to achieve more, see how it works? And with information so easily accessible, you have the opportunity to fuel your values and passions at the click of a button! Seeing other people succeed will only help to motivate yourself.

Understanding that everyone has their own set of feelings, desires, triggers and fears. It involves letting them talk without interruption, preconceptions, scepticism and putting your own issues on pause to allow yourself to absorb their situation and consider how they are feeling before you react.

Sometimes the best way to open your mind is to jump on a plane and go somewhere completely different. Highly empathetic people have an insatiable curiosity about strangers.

When we talk to people outside of our usual social circle we learn about and begin to understand opinions, views and lives that are different to our own. It covers a wide range of abilities, from communication and conflict management to dealing with change, meeting new people and building relationships and plays a part in almost every part of our lives, from work life to our romantic life.

Internationally known psychologist, Daniel Goleman, suggests highlighting someone you know to be good at that particular skill, observing how they act and how they control their emotions and then implementing and applying that knowledge to yourself.

Give it a try, you never know. So next time instead of instant messaging your best friend, meet up for a drink!