psychology
3 tips on how to increase your emotional intelligence
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Would you like to work on your emotional intelligence? Certainly can’t hurt! We have great tips from the psychologist on how you can do this.
Emotions are fundamentally good – especially if we have a certain level of emotional intelligence, that is, the ability to perceive our feelings, perceive other people’s feelings and respond appropriately to them. According to studies, those who have this and therefore a “high EQ” are happier, more successful and more relaxed than people who are less emotionally intelligent (by the way, here you can find signs that you… recognize emotional intelligence). But how do you get emotional intelligence? Is it innate? Or trained? Better: We can acquire and train them ourselves! In “Psychologytoday”, psychologist and coach Russell Clayton gives three tips on how we can do this.
3 expert tips on how to increase your emotional intelligence
1. Train your emotional language skills
According to Clayton, being able to name and express our feelings helps us to understand and classify them better – and in fact language has the nature of organizing the world for us. We can train our emotional language skills by specifically using simple, three-part sentences of the form “I feel…”. So instead of a reaction like “That can’t be true!” rather “I feel frustrated!”. According to Clayton, the characteristics of language that promotes emotional intelligence are:
- Express your own feeling in a three-part sentence
- Use “I” instead of “you” or “that.”
- Use labels for feelings (frustrated, impatient, sad, angry, happy, worried…)
- Remember: Our perceptions and thoughts determine our feelings (you can find out more about this in our article “Understanding Feelings”)
2. Develop empathy
Empathy means that we register and understand the feelings of those around us and is an important component of emotional intelligence. Those who are empathetic are usually perceived as likeable, are less likely to get into conflicts and misunderstandings or are able to deal with them better and give others the feeling of being respected and taken seriously – in short, they have the best prerequisites, are socially integrated and successful to be. According to Clayton, the most important steps to develop or train empathy are:
- Listen! (And resist the urge to interrupt)
- Be very reserved with advice! (Sometimes just listening is enough)
- Put yourself in the other person’s shoes! (Try to look at things from his eyes)
3. Gain emotional control
Emotional control means that we always focus on what we can control – rather than investing our emotional energy on what we cannot control. For example, we usually can’t control other people’s behavior (unless we’re masters of manipulation), or the weather, or when the train arrives, what decisions our government makes, whether our washing machine works, etc. What we always control What we can do is our breathing – that’s why Clayton recommends, among other things, that we breathe in and out deeply in stressful situations.
In addition, forward thinking can help us maintain emotional control instead of giving in to our emotional surges: “How important will this be to me tomorrow or in a week? Will I even remember it then?“Clayton’s tips on how we can learn to become more emotionally controlled at a glance:
- Consciously breathe in and out deeply/do breathing exercises
- If possible, leave the situation and look at it from a distance
- Forward thinking: “Will I still be interested in this in a week?“
According to the expert, these tips will not make us an emotional genius after reading them once. But if we consistently integrate it into our everyday lives and use it repeatedly, our emotional intelligence should improve – and with it our entire life.