Top Ways to Boost your Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can sometimes be perceived as fluffy and even a little subjective. 

Fortunately, with more research being done every day on emotional intelligence (or EQ), we are now starting to realise that boosting our EQ can be a sure way to also increase your motivation and work ethic resulting in promotions, increased revenue and a happy workforce.

This article, ‘Top Ways to Boost your Emotional Intelligence’ will share some simple ways you can boost your EQ in a short time and you need nothing other than an open mind and a decision to try each exercise.

Emotions are choice

Highly successful people have a unique ability to ‘choose’ the emotions that help them the most in any given situation.  Less successful people are usually at the mercy of their emotions feeling like something needs to happen in order for them to feel great or if something bad happens they need to also feel bad.

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” – Epictitus.

From today, start to think about how you react in certain situations.  Do you get highly stressed out when you are stuck in traffic?  If you have a bad meeting, do you get caught up in your own emotions as a result of it?  Or do you smile and think ‘next time you have a meeting, you will be better prepared?’

Emotion selection requires a high level of consciousness.  If something bad happens, you may feel down about it at that time.  However, allowing that emotion to flow and then letting it go can be key to a happier and more productive day.

Ask what the most resourceful emotion is for right now

You can also be proactive about the emotions that you feel.  For example, if you are about to present to a large audience, the best emotions you can feel would more than likely be confidence, excitement and passion.  Yet, many people only focus on that they are feeling nervous, anxious and perhaps stressed.  Which of these two examples do you feel would serve you best for your next presentation?

A great question you can ask yourself is:

“What is the most resourceful emotion for right now?”

Breaking down this question into more detail, resourceful means it’s something you have inside of you that can help you.  Right now means you do not need to wait another second, in this very moment you can choose happiness, confidence, kindness, love. 

Now think about various situations you might face at work and ask “what is the most resourceful emotion to handle each of these situations?”  Take a pen and paper and write down the emotions and the reasons why you have chosen them.   It’s important to remember that if you choose a resourceful emotion that you stay true to it.  If you know being confident will help you, then keep your focus on being confident when you are in that situation, don’t allow other emotions that are not as resourceful to creep in.

Bonus: You can also ask what the most resourceful mindset and body language is for right now.  This will allow you to align your emotion, body language and mindset for peak success.

Focus on what you can control

Steve Covey, in his book ‘7 Habits of Highly Successful People’, clearly states that when you focus on the things you can control you will feel more positive as a result and get more done.  However, when you focus your energy on things you cannot control, it can be disempowering and leave you feeling stressed, anxious or even depressed. 

Once again, when we have a conscious and present mind, emotions are something that are more often than not under our own control. 

Turn negatives into a positive

Finally, if you can turn each negative into a positive you can start to consistently feel better about each day.  Jim Rohn who was a world famous entrepreneur and billionaire said “there is no such thing as failure, only feedback.”

For a more in depth look at Emotional Intelligence, Capita L&D provide a one-day training course, to help you get the best outcomes out of every situation. 

Written by Pete Scott, a learning consultant at Capita Learning & Development.