Smart Beans for Increasing Your Emotional Intelligence
Over the last several years, the topic of emotional intelligence has become increasingly popular. People with average IQ’s have been shown to outperform people with high IQs by roughly 70 percent of the time because they have higher emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is your ability to evaluate, control, and express your emotions and assess the feelings of others.
There are countless ways to improve your overall life. However, the chances are high that you’re overlooking one of the major areas: your emotional intelligence.
Improving your emotional intelligence can create a significant difference when it comes to your happiness and success. If you’re looking to increase your emotional intelligence, here are smart beans to help achieve improving your overall life.
Smart Bean #1 Find Stress-Relieving Techniques
One of the easiest ways that you can improve your emotional intelligence is to determine your sources of stress and find a way to limit them. Stress-relief measures, like meditation, deep breathing, and yoga, might work for some people, but others might find hitting the speed bag or going for a run to be more effective at reducing stress. Finding out what works best for you can help you become more emotionally intelligent in no time.
Smart Bean #2 Take a Pause Before You Judge
Judging others is often a knee-jerk reaction that has become second nature to many of us. However, if you want to increase your emotional intelligence, you need to identify your judgmental thoughts and try to pause before you make a quick judgment. When you take the time to think about it, you may find that you are not upset with the person, but you are dealing with stress in another part of your life.
Smart Bean #3 Become Aware of How You Feel
Rather than immediately trying to combat negative feelings, take some time to sit with them for a while first. Starting to understand what it means for you to feel anger, resentment, or anger without an immediate fix can help you address what is causing you to feel those feelings and allows you to find a healthier way to deal with those emotions.
Smart Bean #4 Learn to Take Criticism
No one likes to feel as though they are being criticized. However, learning to accept constructive criticism is a significant part of being emotionally intelligent. Understanding why that criticism might be necessary, learning how to believe what is being said might be true and adapting your performance is a massive step toward increasing your emotional intelligence.
Smart Bean #5 Accept Your Weaknesses
No one is perfect, and that’s alright. However, if you are looking to increase your emotional intelligence, it is imperative that you accept your weakness and learn from them, rather than simply denying that you have them. Learning to accept your shortcomings can significantly improve your emotional intelligence.
Smart Bean #6 – Take Time to Notice How You Are Being
If you find yourself anxious or tense when you are trying to solve critical issues, the energy you are expending can end up permeating the rest of your life and stall the progress that you’re trying to create. These emotions can also end up causing you to make decisions that alleviate your anxiety, but that might not be the best decisions to address the challenges you are facing. To increase your emotional intelligence, you need to take the time to notice how you are being. Take stock of how you are feeling at the moment. Noticing your’ way of being’ can help to increase your self-awareness, which is a crucial aspect of emotional intelligence.
Smart Bean #7 – Choose How You Want to Be
After you’ve successfully noticed how you’re being, the next step is to decide how you want to be. Consider when you are stuck in a contentious issue that is causing tension. While being tense isn’t wrong, it might not be helpful for you. You might benefit more from a calming presence, which will allow other possibilities rather than becoming mired with negativity that is associated with the current conflict. However you choose to be, you need to acknowledge that it is your choice. This will help you to manage your emotions and recognize the role your choice plays in boosting your emotional intelligence.
Smart Bean #8 – Be the One You Choose
Channel the way of being that you have chosen and become it. If you’ve decided to be peaceful, take the time to calm your mind, slow your breathing, and relax your muscles. This is the step where you effectively implement the decision you’ve made.
These steps are a way for you to start to manage your emotions and be effective during difficult times. To improve your emotional intelligence, practice these steps over and over again until it becomes second nature. This process can help to empower you as a leader in a way that will benefit the entire team.
For additional resources for improving your emotional intelligence visit The Prudent Merchant Institute and look for the eBook “How to Develop Emotional Intelligence”.
Emotional intelligence is an essential aspect of both your personal and professional success. Following these smart beans for increasing your emotional intelligence can significantly improve your life.
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