Spotlight: What it means to be emotionally intelligent

    It is our emotional intelligence (EI) that gives us the ability to read our instinctive feelings and those of others. It also allows us to understand and label emotions as well as express and regulate them, according to our very own Marc Brackett, Ph.D., founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Yale Child Study Center. Dr. Brackett says that the ability to reach, understand, and respond to emotions in ourselves and other people is a crucial factor in predicting our health, happiness, and professional success. Learn what it means to be emotionally intelligent. 

    It is important to recognize that Emotional Intelligence can affect:

    • Your performance at work. High emotional intelligence can help you navigate social complexities of the workplace as well as lead and motivate others and excel in your career.
    • Your physical health. If you are unable to manage your emotions, you are probably not managing your stress either. This can lead to serious health problems such as high blood pressure, a suppressed immune system, or a risk of a heart attack and/or stroke.
    • Your mental health. Uncontrolled emotions and stress can also impact your mental health, making you vulnerable to anxiety and depression.
    • Your relationships. By understanding your emotions and how to control them, you are better able to express how you feel and understand how others are feeling. This allows you to communicate more effectively and forge stronger relationships, both at work and in your personal life.
    • Your social intelligence. Being in tune with your emotions serves a social purpose, connecting you to other people and the world around you. Social intelligence enables you to recognize friend from foe, measure another person’s interest in you, reduce stress, balance your nervous system through social communication, and feel loved and happy.

    Emotional Intelligence is commonly defined by four attributes:

    Self-Management
    For you to engage your EI, you must be able to use your emotions to make constructive decisions about your behavior. 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 too stressed, your ability to both think clearly and accurately assess emotions—your own and other people’s—becomes compromised.

    With the ability to manage stress by staying emotionally present, you can learn to receive upsetting information without letting it override your thoughts and self-control. You will be able to manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances.

    Self-Awareness
    Managing stress is just the first step to building emotional intelligence. Being self-aware—having a moment-to-moment connection with your changing emotional experience—is a 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 anger, sadness, fear, and joy, each of which is evident in subtle facial expressions? Are your feelings intense enough to capture both your attention and that of others? Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision making?

    If any of these experiences are unfamiliar, you may have “turned down” or “turned off” your emotions. To build EI—and become emotionally healthy—you must reconnect to your core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them.

    Social Awareness
    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 is truly important to them.

    Social awareness requires your presence in the moment. While many of us pride ourselves on an ability to multitask, this means that you could miss the subtle emotional shifts taking place in other people that help you fully understand them. You are more likely to further your social goals by setting other thoughts aside and focusing on the interaction itself. Paying attention to others does not diminish your own self-awareness. By investing the time and effort to really focus on others, you will gain insight into your own emotional state as well as your values and beliefs. For example, if you feel discomfort hearing others express certain views, you will have learned something important about yourself.

    Relationship Management
    Working well with others is a process that begins with emotional awareness and your ability to recognize and understand what other people are experiencing. Once emotional awareness is in play, you can effectively develop additional social/emotional skills that will make your relationships more effective, fruitful, and fulfilling. Become aware of how effectively you use nonverbal communication. It is 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 will not. Recognizing the nonverbal messages that you send to others can play a huge part in improving your relationships.

    Some experts believe that emotional intelligence is more important in determining life success than IQ alone. Understanding emotions can be the key to better relationships, improved well-being, and stronger communication skills.

    Writer’s Sources/Helpful Resources
    What are the benefits of emotional intelligence?
    Communicate with emotional intelligence
    Simplifying emotions