How To Increase Your Emotional Intelligence

Emotions are strong impulses that urge us to take immediate action. Our most powerful and primitive emotions want us to survive at all costs despite danger, illness and obstacles.

- Neha Bali

Emotional intelligence or EI is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you. One has to understand that EI along with regular intelligence is important to succeed in life. One has to develop the ability to maintain a balance between the two.

The ability to manage people and relationships is a skill needed to successfully navigate one’s personal as well as professional life. Data suggests that IQ (Intelligence Quotient) only accounts for about 20% of success in life, with the remaining 80% being made up by other factors, emotional intelligence included. IQ reflects how smart we are, but it does not show how we handle our emotional lives. Passions and impulses can derail even those with the highest IQs. The good news for all is that while some people have EI as a natural talent, for those who do not, EI skills can be learned. People can learn how to interact more effectively at work and home and increase their emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is the key to loving, working, learning, and taking care of ourselves and others to the best of our abilities. We often forget that to be emotional is to be human. There is nothing wrong with feeling emotions. The problems arise when the emotions are out of tune with the situation and when we do not express our emotions productively or safely. The key is to manage our emotions and use them productively.