Emotional Intelligence - How Can You Boost Your EQ?

Emotional intelligence or EQ is the capacity to understand your own and other people’s emotions, to manage your own emotions in a positive way and to have harmonious social relationships.

- Prof Hew Gill

EQ is very important because the research evidence appears to show that people who are able to manage their emotions effectively are much more likely to be successful, happier, and are even likely to live longer and healthier lives. So what is EQ and how can you improve it ?

There are four broad aspects of EQ and the most important of these is self-awareness. This is the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions, and how these inner feelings may affect your thoughts and behaviours. Once you understand yourself you can then begin to see patterns in your emotions and this means that you can tackle the second part of EQ by managing your feelings, thoughts and behaviours. The third aspect of EQ is learning to recognise other people’s emotions and being able to empathise with them, as well as understanding how others’ emotions, motivations and behaviours may change in response to you and different social situations. Lastly, EQ is about combining all these elements so that you can initiate, develop, and maintain harmonious relationships with a wide range of other people. Developing your EQ means being able to communicate more effectively, inspiring and influencing other people, preventing or resolving conflicts, and becoming a liked and trusted member of your social and professional groups.