9 Extremely Efficient Tips to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence ...

1. Be Open-Minded and Curious!

One of the easiest tips to improve your emotional intelligence I could give you is to tell you to try to be always open-minded and curious. You should be open to new ideas because a narrow mind is generally associated with a low emotional intelligence coefficient. Try to understand other people’s emotions and opinions, acknowledge them and remember that you might not be always right. Feed your intellectual curiosity with the proper "food" and you will see pleasant changes in no time!

2. Learn to Be Empathetic

Some people are born with the ability to understand other people’s feelings and some don’t. If you are among the ones in the second category, don’t worry; it’s not so hard to learn to be empathetic but you should remember that it may take a little time and a lot of practice. Try to put yourself in the shoes of others and try to imagine how they must feel. Don’t think about the way you would react to certain events because every person is different.

3. Recognize Stress-Triggers

Stress is such a big part of our lives! It may exhaust you sometimes and you’ll not pay enough attention to other people’s feelings. In order to enhance your emotional intelligence, one of the easiest and most efficient things you could do is to recognize the stress-triggers and learn how to deal with them. You could try learning some stress reduction techniques, some relaxation techniques and practice them as often as possible.

4. Practice Your Communication Skills

A high emotional intelligence coefficient is the result of having good communication skills because by communicating better, it will be easier for you to send across and receive clearer messages. You mustn’t forget about the importance of body language! Studies show that 70% of the message is sent with the help of body language. There are a ton of books you could read to improve your communication skills and to better understand body language!

5. Be Optimistic!

An optimistic person always tends to see the beauty in everything, thus being much happier; you could even say that this is a result of having an open mind. Work on your optimism levels if you tend to see things in a negative manner. Remember that people love to be around optimists, and I’m sure you would too. So, learn to identify your qualities, accept them, be proud of your skills, recognize also your flaws and try to make the best out of everything.

6. Understand the Importance of Emotional Intelligence

Try to realize how extremely useful and amazing would be to master the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Having a good emotional intelligence coefficient could help you a lot in your carrier, family life or even in your relationship. So, if you’re not born with a high emotional intelligence coefficient, then try to get it through practice and a bit of hard work. You will be more than pleased with the results!

7. Respect Other People’s Feelings

An extremely important thing to do in order to increase your emotional intelligence is to learn to recognize and respect your emotions and especially other people’s feelings or emotions. Of course, this is not enough, we must show them that we understand their behavior, that we care and that we will do anything possible to help them if they need us. A simple thing like respect may help you change your behavior significantly!

8. Take Responsibility for Your Feelings

If you want to improve significantly your emotional intelligence, you should learn first how to take responsibility for your emotions or for the way you’re feeling in certain situations. Learn to think and say "I’m feeling angry/ upset!" than "You make me feel angry/upset!" By doing this, you’ll realize you’re the only one who can control your emotions and that your well-being depends entirely on you. So, it’s up to you to decide if you want to feel better or worse.

9. Be More Rational

By being more rational you could obtain so many satisfactions in so little time! Try to analyze your feelings, try to acknowledge them, try to understand their causes (find as many of them as possible) just be careful not to over-analyze everything because it will require too much effort and time and it may exhaust you. Always try to find the perfect balance when it comes to being more rational.

So, these were my tips for improving your emotional intelligence. What other ways for increasing your emotional intelligence coefficient do you know? Do tell!