When you have high Emotional Intelligence, you can recognize and understand emotions in yourself and in others. This ability is used to regulate emotions, improve happiness, and build strong relationships. Since having high Emotional Intelligence is so beneficial, it makes sense to learn how to improve your Emotional Intelligence.

Improve Your Emotional Intelligence: Look for Links 

To improve your Emotional Intelligence, look for the links between feelings and situations. This helps you identify what brings out different emotions. Do this both while you are in the middle of emotional experiences and when you have a chance to look back over past emotions. Often in the heat of the moment, you can miss the heart of what has caused the emotion. Even if it seems obvious, take a moment to ask, “Why am I feeling like this?” and “Why did I feel like that?”

Think back to times when you felt different emotions, and what was happening when you felt this. You will find here are often clues when you remember who you were with, where you were, what you were doing, and what happened before. These insights will help with learning how to improve your Emotional Intelligence.

Improve Your Emotional Intelligence: Do Not Avoid the Dark Side

Identifying negative emotions and their causes is just as important as the positive emotions when you want to improve your Emotional Intelligence. When you feel sad, depressed, or angry, discover where these feelings are coming from, how long they last, and what things help to change these feelings.

Do this when you are around others as well. Instead of ignoring or avoiding negative emotions in others, try to understand them. Pay attention to what types of things help your friends when they are feeling down, and put this information to good use.

Improve Your Emotional Intelligence: Tune In

Throughout your day improve your emotional intelligence by asking yourself “How am I feeling?” It can become a habit to tune out emotions and ignore your feelings. But that does not stop the feelings. Create a new habit of tuning in to your feelings. When you realize you feel happy, enjoy it! Even if the feeling is fleeting, capture it while you can.

While you are learning to tune in to your feelings, tune in to the feelings of people around you as well. Pay attention to how they are holding their body, their facial expressions, and what they are saying. When appropriate, follow up your observations by asking them how they feel. This helps you accurately identify feelings in others—something that everyone can learn to do better.

Improve Your Emotional Intelligence: Tune Out

While it is important to identify negative emotions in yourself and others, be sure not to dwell on them. Pay attention to them, look for links that connect them, learn from them, and then move forward. This can be as simple as changing your thoughts and focusing on a time when you felt happy, peaceful, or fulfilled. Or, you may benefit from a change of scenery. Get outside if you can, connect with someone who is having a great day, or give yourself a different playlist to listen to. Take an action to change the negative into positive.

Improve Your Emotional Intelligence: Write a Note

Writing things down is a great way to improve your Emotional Intelligence. It does not need to be deep and meaningful. You could keep it as simple as writing the time, the feeling, and what links you notice to the feeling. Then you can go back through these notes and develop a better understanding of what causes your emotions and what changes them.

Improve Your Emotional Intelligence: Focus on Your Power

For every feeling you experience, you also have a choice. Even when the feeling is part of an external trigger (such as seeing someone who has hurt you in the past), there is something you can do that will improve your emotional wellbeing. Focus on this rather than the things you cannot control. Choose a thought, a saying, or an action that will help you without hurting others.

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