Unlock your inner emotional intelligence and introverted mindset

The power to recognise and handle one’s own emotions and validate and persuade the emotions of people in one’s vicinity is known as emotional intelligence (EI) or emotional quotient (EQ). John Mayer and Peter Salovey invented this term in 1990, and psychiatrists later publicised it.

Introduction

The emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) is an important skill for solving complex problems for today’s people. For introverts, realising this potential can be extremely transformative. Introverts have distinct strengths that, combined with high emotional intelligence, can result in significant personal and professional progress. In this post, we will further understand emotional intelligence from an introvert’s perspective and provide practical ways to increase it.

Identification of Low EI:

Low emotional intelligence (EI), or EQ, is a sign of the disagreement that results from a lack of understanding and recognition of emotions.  Trouble in expressing and managing emotions is a sign of having less emotional intelligence. One’s lack of emotional intelligence causes problems such as not understanding the coworker’s worries and having trouble listening actively. Let’s take the example of a person having troubled relations with his teammates due to misunderstandings, constant tug of wars about opinions, blame games, and anger issues. This is all a result of having low emotional intelligence. The fundamental elements of emotional intelligence—trying to acquire international skills and display sensitivity towards others’ emotional behavior—are crucial.

Components of emotional intelligence

There are four basic components of emotional intelligence:

Self-awareness

The first and foremost element of acquiring emotional intelligence is being thoughtful about one’s emotions, which can be termed self-awareness. The ability to develop one’s expression, communication, listening, and other emotional intelligence skills can reveal how self-aware one is.

Self-awareness is simply the regulation of emotions by identifying the root cause of that emotion and tackling response behavior. We can only accomplish this by being more aware of our own emotions and giving ourselves enough time to understand why we are feeling overwhelmed and what has sparked that sudden reaction. Self-awareness is the first step towards healing. 83% of high-performing, successful people have high self-awareness, while those with less self-awareness are low-performance achievers. People who have high self-awareness have strong, decisive power, and they feel at ease with the choices they make. By practicing consistent mindfulness, we can achieve high levels of self-awareness.

Self-management

Self-management is the capability to use self-awareness to maintain calm and composed behavior and personality and change how people respond to things rather than react. The more self-aware our brain will be, the easier it will be to manage and regulate emotions, and the brain will have the potential to make the right spontaneous decisions. Self-management is the second name for dealing with uncertain situations, and it is used to adapt your brain to spontaneous behavioral and emotional situations based on making decisions on the spot. By routinely monitoring our responses, we can manipulate our way of thinking and filter out the positive responses. This acknowledgment leads us to acquire self-management skills.

Social awareness

Social awareness is deeply related to the idea of self-awareness; being concerned about the feelings of other people goes beyond describing them through words. Social awareness is just like the practical application of self-awareness, like being an active listener in group discussions or one-on-one conversations. Though self-awareness refers to the ability to discriminate our own emotions, leaders are able to easily figure out other people’s emotional states. The three plans to improve social awareness are

• Being conscious of minute variations,
• Understand how the social space functions.
• Looking for feedback from others during brain-storming

Relationship management

Relationship management is the basis for seeing and understanding others’ thoughts and feelings in a relationship. This knowledge allows for better decision-making.

It can be used to build and sustain connections. Many characteristics of a relationship need to be properly organized, and they may lead to a healthy, genuine, and professional relationship if curated correctly. During stressful situations, lack of communication, misunderstandings, and not being able to resolve disputes are the reasons for poor relationship management. Building trust, being kind to others and sensitive to their emotions, and dealing with difficult situations are all ways to develop relationship management skills.

How to Improve Emotional Intelligence?

Attentiveness and following a proper routine can help improve EI skills like:

Try to respond to the situation instead of reacting—try to find the root cause of your anger and resolve the issue instead of lashing out your anger at anyone.

Recollect your personality pros and cons—the things you have great expertise in or the things you cannot do yourself.

Try to get a perception of the meaning behind words that people do not express through words. If there is any misinterpretation or misunderstanding, try to resolve it through communication so there is no confusion or dispute in your teamwork.

Make your communication your most powerful skill. Whether it’s a presentation, discussion, or debate, make your views crystal clear and try to forward each one of them in the most effective way possible so that there is no air of confusion. Put your opinions forward and be a good listener and listen to others without interrupting them.

The Roots of Emotional Intelligence:

Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer developed the theory in 1990, which Daniel Goldman publicized. It has gained worldwide acceptance and is also termed the emotional quotient (EQ).

Why emotional intelligence is important?

It is scientifically proven that our communication, intellectual skills, and decision-making ability are affected if we let our emotions overpower our minds. Managing and acknowledging our own emotions and those of those around us helps us develop our personalities both personally and professionally. EI affects the physical outlook of a person, affects mental health, decreases depression and anxiety, as well as hormonal mood swings. It directly relates to positivity and happiness. We are also able to appreciate relationships in our lives, either with parents, siblings, or friends, and cherish them for a lifetime.

Emotional intelligence helps us mold our personality by:

• Being able to communicate without hurting anyone’s feelings
• Being able to manage a rush of emotions, like in a stressed or overwhelming situation
• Being cautious of the feelings of people around

Emotional intelligence can be helpful in the workplace.

• Resolving disputes
• Motivating and providing guidance
• Collaborative environment
• Sense of being safe and secure and psychological understanding among teammates

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Emotional Intelligence (EI):

Robots perceive the emotions of humans to provoke any human response or make possible the interaction between humans and machines.  Perceiving emotions accurately, generating emotions or responses, assisting thoughts, regulating emotions, and stimulating intellectual growth are potential benefits of emotional intelligence. Robots must adopt all of these traits in order to interact with people effectively, produce emotional responses, and be aware of other people’s feelings. Robots, being machinery, do not have the capability to feel emotions; rather, they require proper indicators like facial expressions or pitch of voice to describe emotions. An efficient person would perform all functions, from perceiving to understanding, managing, and using emotions for human interactions.

HOW TO DEVELOP EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE SKILLS:

By changing your daily routine, you can actually boost your skills as well as your emotional intelligence. Methodologies are given:

Journal writing

By reflecting on your own day at the end of the day, how is your behavior with your colleagues, in which areas you have to work hard or improve, and how was your response to not winning the project for which you have worked hard? By jotting down your day-to-day thoughts, you can actually boost your emotional intelligence by regulating your response. Your pattern behavior and sudden reaction can be identified through journaling. The more you question your own behaviors and patterns, the more you can identify the root cause and proceed to improve them. The more thoughtful you are about your actions, the better emotional intelligence you will have. You will avoid situations that have the worst consequential outcome.

Practice active listening

You can easily become distracted in this sophisticated and technologically advanced era by music, background noise, or cutting-edge technology, as well as by your own overthinking. According to psychologists, only 10% of the population is active listeners.

Emotional intelligence, communication skills, and listening skills are the core elements of being a great leader. By practicing active listening, focusing on the speech of the speaker, and responding with gestures through body language, you can ensure that you are actively listening. Through active listening, you get to know about the nature of the person you are interacting with, which will make your interaction and communication smooth.

Pay attention to your emotions.

You are only able to understand others if you know yourself well enough. Let’s have a situation in which you feel overwhelmed. In that outburst of emotion, take a pause and try to think about why you are feeling that way. Make a conscious effort to consider your emotions. Try to find the trigger point and root cause of that emotion. Take a look at your response as a result of that emotion. By finding answers to your questions, you will be able to better understand your colleagues. You will be able to be an empathetic leader of a successful and result-driven team. 

Take an online course or training.

Taking online leadership courses and being involved in leading teams and training will boost your emotional intelligence to the next level. These events will not only increase your knowledge, but you will also get to know experienced leaders and successful communities.

The 3 Cs of Emotional Intelligence:

The 3 C’s represent the core perspective of emotional intelligence:

1. Consciousness: being thoughtful of your sentiments and having self-awareness so you can recognize how your emotional reactions influence others.
2. Compassion means having compassionate emotions towards others. Being the one who most understands and recognizes the needs, wants, emotions, and opinions of others, along with balancing your own, is a sign of having high emotional intelligence.
3. Connectedness: being able to connect with others. Being good at communication and listening means you will be able to easily interact with people, indulge in deeper conversations, and increase your social circle, which is a sign of being emotionally intelligent.

Conclusion

Hence, it is concluded that emotional intelligence is the most important characteristic for acquiring a respectful and impactful personality. Responding to eventful situations, being thoughtful of the emotions of people around us, and being calm and composed in stressful situations are signs of having a higher EI. Our efforts have only improved it.