Emotional Intelligence, what it is and how you can improve it.
We have a fantastic new article for you on emotional intelligence and how to improve it, written by our Head of Family Law, Veronica Beard.
Some say that emotional intelligence is now more important than our IQ but what actually is it and how can you tell if you or someone you know has low or high emotional intelligence (EI or EQ).
Emotional intelligence is made up of three main components. The first is how you perceive emotions, that is to say whether you can understand and recognise emotions accurately. The second is how you reason with emotions which translate into how you use that information to govern your thinking, to include your decision making and problem solving choices. The third is understanding the emotions and what might be behind them. Of course how well you can express and control your own emotions is key and there are various tests now available to determine your own level of emotional intelligence.
This topic has now become recognised as so fundamentally important to a person’s functionality that some companies are expecting prospective employees to be assessed at interview stage. That makes sense when you consider how difficult it can be to work with someone who is not able to control their emotions. The old saying of ‘they wear their heart on their sleeve’ is sweet but it can wear extremely thin for those around that person to suffer along with them when there is a job to be done.
If we were all more switched on to how this works, we could do so much to improve our relationships with our spouse, our children, teenagers and our co-workers.
Improving our EQ would seem very possible for those who are invested enough to take note of what is required and apply that to their day to day lives.
First on the agenda is thinking before reacting. The emotionally intelligent recognise that first reactions are unreliable and will not reflect the best way to respond. Consider being met with an angry outburst from a spouse or a teenage child and rather than immediately responding with your first reaction, you take a moment to consider the factors surrounding the outburst. This puts you in a place of control and in fact power. To make no initial reaction, other than a calm response, is far better and less damaging than one of knee jerk emotional reaction.
Secondly, gain more self-awareness. Whilst you might be good at recognising how others feel, how are you at recognising your own feelings in a given situation? This is particularly important in a relationship breakdown scenario. It is good to explore how you are feeling about a given situation, the presentation of a divorce petition for example can create feelings of huge hurt and defensiveness. It is important to work through your feelings in private and perhaps to verbalise them with a close friend before reacting to the situation. Be kind to yourself and break down each stage into smaller chunks which you are able to process and cope with at that time.
Thirdly listening not only with your ears but also by paying attention to tones of voices and body language are all important. What might this person be trying to tell me by their body language, eye contact or lack of it and body movements.
If we can improve on EQ then we are empowered to deal with people who are not so switched on to this secret weapon. If we have control over our own emotions then we can deal with those who do not. We are then in a far better position to sit down with an ex during a mediation session and talk calmly in a way which is measured about finances, child contact arrangements or whatever is needed at the time.
I wish you well with improving your EQ and if you need legal advice to help you to move on with the next stage of your relationship breakdown please contact me (veronica@bradleyhayneslaw.co.uk) or a family lawyer local to you from the Group Hug Directory.
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