Emotional Intelligence Part 5

Emotional Intelligence

Part 5

The key to making good decisions is being attuned to our feelings. The stronger the feelings the more attuned we need to be to make sure we aren’t blindly acting on something that we shouldn’t, especially when we are talking about the ever powerful emotion of anger.

Benjamin Franklin said a long time ago, “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one.” Anger is the mood people are worst at controlling. Our self-righteous inner monologue fills our minds with convincing arguments for it. However, reframing the situation in a more positive light can help put anger to rest. When we feel anger coming on we should immediately go into distraction mode. Distract them, or, ourselves if angry, and reframe the angry situation to something better. Also, challenge those thoughts or feelings of anger.

Sadness is a mood that the majority of people put the most effort into shaking. Like anger, when we are feeling sad, we can challenge those feelings. However, do not ruminate in negative feelings. Just like anger, reframe sad thoughts to something more positive. This reframing is called, “Cognitive Reframing”. This cognitive reframing and writing down whatever negative or counterproductive thoughts one has in order to challenge them and then reframe them in a more positive light really helps one improve their emotional intelligence.

Did you know that emotional intelligence really helps in athletics? Athletes with high emotional intelligence have the special ability to motivate themselves to pursue relentless training routines without quitting due to boredom. It typically takes about 10,000 hours of practice to move near the top of one’s field on the national level, and 15,000 hours of practice to move near the top of one’s field on the international level. Very few people have the emotional intelligence to be able to stay motivated for that long, while facing and overcoming the setbacks that are bound to happen along the way.

Empathy is a powerful emotional intelligence. The failure to notice another’s feelings is a major deficit in emotional intelligence, and a tragic lapse in what it means to be human. Rapport, the root of caring, stems from emotional attunement, from the capacity for empathy. The roots of morality are to be found in empathy. Having empathy makes one more out-going, happier, and do better in school.

However, in order to be empathic it requires one to be calm enough, and receptive enough so that the subtle signals of feeling from another person can be received and mimicked by one’s own emotional brain. This is emotional intelligence.

Another key social competence is how well or how poorly people express their own feelings. This ability to express one’s own feeling have an immediate impact on the other people who are receiving them. This transaction could be good or bad depending how social and emotionally adept one is.

Those who are adept at social intelligence can connect with people quite smoothly, be astute in reading other’s reactions and feelings, lead and organize, and handle the disputes that are bound to flare up in any human activity. They are the natural leaders, the people who can express the unspoken collective sentiment and articulate it so as to guide a group toward its goals. They are the kind of people others like to be with because they are emotionally nourishing- they leave other people in a good mood and always see criticism as an opportunity to work with others rather than an adversarial situation. In addition, these star performers build relationship and networks long before they need them.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com