How Emotionally Intelligent Are You?
Here's How To Tell
Posted:
12/05/2013 8:39 am EST | Updated: 12/05/2013 2:22 pm EST
What makes some
people more successful in work and life than others? IQ and work ethic are
important, but they don't tell the whole story. Our emotional
intelligence -- the way we manage emotions, both our own and those of others --
can play a critical role in determining our happiness and success.
Plato said that
all learning has some emotional basis, and he may be right. The way we interact
with and regulate our emotions has repercussions in nearly every aspect of our
lives. To put it in colloquial terms, emotional intelligence (EQ) is like
"street smarts," as opposed to "book smarts," and it's what
accounts for a great deal of one's ability to navigate life effectively.
"What
having emotional intelligence looks like is that you're confident, good at
working towards your goals, adaptable and flexible. You recover quickly from
stress and you're resilient," Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of Focus:
The Hidden Driver of Excellence, tells The Huffington Post. "Life goes
much more smoothly if you have good emotional intelligence."
The five
components of emotional intelligence, as defined by Goleman, are
self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, social skills and empathy. We can
be strong in some of these areas and deficient in others, but we all have the
power to improve any of them.
Not sure how
emotionally intelligent you are? Here are 14 signs you have a high EQ.
1. You're
curious about people you don't know.
Do you love
meeting new people, and naturally tend to ask lots of questions after you've
been introduced to someone? If so, you have a certain degree of empathy, one of
the main components of emotional intelligence. Highly Empathetic People (HEPs)
-- those who are extremely attuned to the needs and feelings of others, and act
in a way that is sensitive to those needs -- have one important thing in
common: They're very curious about strangers and genuinely interested in
learning more about others.
Being curious
about others is also a way to cultivate empathy. "Curiosity expands our
empathy when we talk to people outside our usual social circle, encountering
lives and worldviews very different from our own," Roman Krznaric, author
of the forthcoming Empathy: A Handbook For Revolution, wrote
in a Greater Good blog post.
2. You're a
great leader.
Exceptional
leaders often have one thing in common, according to Goleman. In addition to
the traditional requirements for success -- talent, a strong work ethic and
ambition, for instance -- they possess a high degree of emotional intelligence.
In his research comparing those who excelled in senior leadership roles with
those who were merely average, he found that close to 90 percent of
the difference in their profiles was due to emotional intelligence, rather
than cognitive ability.
"The
higher the rank of a person considered to be a star performer, the more
emotional intelligence capabilities showed up as the reason for his or her
effectiveness," Goleman
wrote in Harvard Business Review.
3. You know
your strengths and weaknesses.
A big part of
having self-awareness is being honest with yourself about who you are --
knowing where you excel, and where you struggle, and accepting these things
about yourself. An emotionally intelligent person learns to identify their
areas of strength and weakness, and analyze how to work most effectively within
this framework. This awareness breeds the strong self-confidence that's a main
factor of emotional intelligence, according to Goleman.
"If you
know what you're truly effective at, then you can operate from that with confidence,"
he says.
4. You know
how to pay attention.
Do you get
distracted by every tweet, text and passing thought? If so, it could be keeping
you from functioning on your most emotionally intelligent level. But the
ability to withstand distractions and focus on the task at hand is a great
secret to emotional intelligence, Goleman says. Without being present with
ourselves and others, it's difficult to develop self-awareness and strong
relationships.
"Your
ability to concentrate on the work you're doing or your schoolwork, and to put
off looking at that text or playing that video game until after you're done ...
how good you are at that in childhood turns out to be a stronger predictor of
your financial success in adulthood than either your IQ or the wealth of the
family you grew up in," Goleman says. "And we can teach kids how to
do that."
5. When
you're upset, you know exactly why.
We all
experience a number of emotional fluctuations throughout the day, and often we
don't even understand what's causing a wave of anger or sadness. But an
important aspect of self-awareness is the ability to recognize where your
emotions are coming from and to know why you feel upset.
Self-awareness is also about
recognizing emotions when they arise, rather than misidentifying or ignoring
them. Emotionally intelligent people take a step back from their emotions, look
at what they're feeling, and examine the effect that the emotion has on them.
6. You can
get along with most people.
"Having
fulfilling, effective relationships -- that's a sign [of emotional
intelligence]," says Goleman.
7. You care
deeply about being a good, moral person.
One aspect of
emotional intelligence is our "moral
identity," which has to do with the extent to which we want to see
ourselves as ethical, caring people. If you're someone who cares about building
up this side of yourself (regardless of how you've acted in past moral
situations), you might have a high EQ.
8. You take
time to slow down and help others.
If you make a
habit of slowing down to pay attention to others, whether by going slightly out
your way to say hello to someone or helping an older woman onto the subway,
you're exhibiting emotional intelligence. Many of us, a good portion of the
time, are completely focused on ourselves. And it's often because we're so busy
running around in a stressed-out state trying to get things done that we simply
don't take the time to notice (much less help) others.
"[There's
a] spectrum that goes from complete self-absorption to noticing to empathy and
to compassion," Goleman said
in a TED talk on compassion. "The simple fact is that if we are
focused on ourselves, if we're preoccupied -- which we so often are throughout
the day -- we don't really fully notice the other."
Being more
mindful, in contrast to being absorbed in your own little world, plants the
seeds of compassion -- a crucial component of EQ.
9. You're
good at reading people's facial expressions.
Being able to
sense how others are feeling is an important part of having a good EQ. Take
this quiz from UC Berkeley to
find out just how skilled you are at reading others' emotions.
10. After
you fall, you get right back up.
How you deal
with mistakes and setbacks says a lot about who you are. High EQ individuals
know that if there's one thing we all must do in life, it's to keep on going.
When an emotionally intelligent person experiences a failure or setback, he or
she is able to bounce back quickly. This is in part because of the ability to
mindfully experience negative emotions without letting them get out of control,
which provides a higher degree of resilience.
“The resilient
person isn’t papering over the negative emotions, but instead letting them sit
side by side with other feelings," Positivity
author Barbara Fredrickson told Experience Life. "So at the same time
they’re feeling ‘I’m sad about that,’ they’re also prone to thinking, ‘but I’m
grateful about this.’”
11. You're a
good judge of character.
You've always
been able to get a sense for who someone is pretty much right off the bat --
and your intuitions are rarely wrong.
12. You
trust your gut.
An emotionally
intelligent person is someone who feels comfortable following their intuition,
says Goleman. If you're able to trust in yourself and your emotions, there's no
reason not to listen to that quiet voice inside (or that feeling in your
stomach) telling you which way to go.
13. You've
always been self-motivated.
Were you always
ambitious and hard-working as a kid, even when you weren't rewarded for it? If
you're a motivated self-starter -- and you can focus your attention and energy
towards the pursuit of your goals -- you likely have a high EQ.
14. You know
when to say "no."
Self-regulation,
one of the five components of emotional intelligence, means being able to
discipline yourself and avoid unhealthy habits. Emotionally intelligent people
are generally well equipped to tolerate stress (a bad-habit trigger for many of
us) and to control their impulses, according
to Goleman.
*Carolyn Gregoire
is a features editor at the Huffington Post. She has spoken at TEDx and the
Harvard Public Health Forum, and appeared on MSNBC and The TODAY Show.
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