How to enhance Emotional Intelligence through habits?

Emotional Intelligence is a set of skills that, although we may not notice it, help us cope with all kinds of complex situations to which we expose ourselves on a day-to-day basis. However, as with all psychological traits, the degree to which this type of intelligence is present in people varies greatly depending on each individual.

That is, not everyone has a good level of Emotional Intelligence. Fortunately, it is possible to take steps to "train" this aspect of yourself; In this article you will find several effective strategies to achieve this through habits to enhance Emotional Intelligence, explained in a summarized way.

• Related article: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is a psychological construct that groups skills of recognition, management and expression of emotions and feelings. This concept arises from the idea that the classical or conventional definition of the term "intelligence" is too limited, when applied usually to processes associated with the use of language or mental representations associated with logic, geometry or mathematics.

Thus, researchers such as Peter Salovey, John D. Mayer or David Goleman have pointed out that there are mental aptitudes and capacities associated with the management of emotions that can be distinguished from the rest of abilities related to intelligence, and that at the same time have characteristics in common and can be studied scientifically. Although in several respects they overlap with some of the ramifications of general intelligence (especially verbal skills), they are a entity of its own and that helps to predict the ease of people when it comes to living while maintaining a good level of well-being and enjoying social relationships adequate.

Some of the capabilities included in Emotional Intelligence are the following:

• Ability to identify and distinguish between different emotions.
• Ease of creating situations and concepts that raise the right emotions in oneself at key moments.
• Use of appropriate strategies to channel and manage emotions.
• Detection of problematic behavior patterns when managing negative or positive emotions.
• Ease of recognizing emotions in others.
• Ability to adapt one's behavior to the state.

Strategies to enhance Emotional Intelligence

There are many ways to promote and enhance Emotional Intelligence, as it is composed of such varied mental and behavioral processes. However, there are some especially useful, and while the best way to progress in this regard is have the help of a psychologist, here you can find the most important ones that you can apply for yourself same / a.

1. Develops habituation to negative emotions

To reinforce the Emotional Intelligence in you, you must assume the idea that it is not possible to completely block negative emotions, that is, those that make you feel bad. To achieve this, make sure you don't get obsessed with shutting things out like anxiety, fear, disgust, etc. Instead, when you experience them, get used to directing your attention to other sensations and stimuli.

2. Familiarize yourself with your emotions through a journal

To gain familiarity with the different emotions, it is useful that you frequently put words into them and that you reflect on the nuances that are in each of them. Therefore, one of the most useful strategies to enhance your Emotional Intelligence consists of completing an emotions diary for several months.

In its pages you will write about what you have felt at certain moments of the day that are important to you, and about the thoughts associated with those emotions and feelings.. Also briefly include information about the context (place and time of day) in which each thing happened to you, and what you did just before and just after feeling that way. By the way, the less time that passes between when you experienced that and the moment you write about it in your emotion journal, the better.

• You may be interested in: "What is anxiety: how to recognize it and what to do"

3. Boost your capacity for self-motivation, always keeping your goals clear

As usual, a short-term and well-defined goal is almost always more motivating than an abstract goal and that will only bring you satisfaction in the medium or long term. Therefore, it is important that you learn to see the sub-goals that are in the more general objectives that you set yourself throughout your life. These will make it easier for you to feel good about your progress consistently as you progress from one to the other sequentially, and In addition, they will make it less likely that the idea of ​​tackling a very complex and lengthy task will intimidate you to the point of paralyzing you and giving up start it.

4. Learn to create contexts that bring out the desired emotions

One of the keys to Emotional Intelligence consists of learn that emotions do not arise out of nowhere, but are linked to the material reality that surrounds us. Therefore, an effective way to enhance Emotional Intelligence is to learn what the situations are and the environments that facilitate the appearance of certain emotions, and use this information in our favor.

For example, experiment with different contexts when working, seeing what elements of the space in which do your tasks make it easy for you to concentrate on what you should do, which ones generate anxiety, which ones distract, etc.

5. Start to look at how you handle negative emotions

Other important aspects of Emotional Intelligence have to do with not self-sabotaging ourselves by performing actions of management of emotional distress that not only does not solve that feeling of discomfort, but also contributes to it in the long run term. For example, there are those who confuse anxiety with hunger, so that when they feel excess stress or anguish they go straight to the fridge to eat something despite not being really hungry. It is also common for poor control of emotions to facilitate the appearance of addictions.

So that, Aim to identify moments of the day in which emotions that make you feel bad give birth to the impulse to perform a certain action, and ask yourself if those actions are really an appropriate way to vent what you feel.

Do you want to have psychotherapeutic assistance?

Managing emotions is one of the aspects that is most worked on in psychotherapy. Therefore, if you are interested in having the support of a team of psychologists with many years of experience in patient care, we invite you to contact us.

On Advance Psychologists We have been working for more than two decades to help people overcome all kinds of difficulties and develop skills to live better. Our team of mental health experts intervenes in the areas of individual psychological therapy, coaching, family and couples therapy, psychiatry and neuropsychology, and our sessions can be face-to-face in our center located in Madrid or through the therapy format on-line.

Bibliographic references:

• Cavazotte F, Moreno V, Hickmann M (2012). Effects of leader intelligence, personality and emotional intelligence on transformational leadership and managerial performance. The Leadership Quarterly, 23 (3): 443-455.
• Gardner, J.K.; Qualter, P. (2010) Concurrent and incremental validity of three trait emotional intelligence measures. Australian Journal of Psychology, 62: pp. 5 - 12.
• Goleman, D. (1998). Working with Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.
• Kamphaus, R.W. (2005). Clinical assessment of child and adolescent intelligence. Springer Science & Business Media.
• Petrides, K.V.; Pita, R.; Kokkinaki, F. (2007). The location of trait emotional intelligence in personality factor space. British Journal of Psychology, 98 (2): pp. 273 - 289.
• Salovey, P. & Grewal, D. (2005). The Science of Emotional Intelligence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14 (6): pp. 281 - 285.