The Top 5 Ways to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence and The Top Signs that You Might Have Low Emotional Intelligence

There are countless ways to improve your overall life. However, the chances are high that you're overlooking one of the major areas: your emotional intelligence. Improving your emotional intelligence can create a significant difference when it comes to your happiness and success. If you’re looking to increase your emotional intelligence, here are the top six methods to try.

Find Stress-Relieving Techniques

One of the easiest ways that you can improve your emotional intelligence is to determine your sources of stress and find a way to limit them. Stress-relief measures, like meditation, deep breathing, and yoga, might work for some people, but others might find hitting the speed bag or going for a run to be more effective at reducing stress. Finding out what works best for you can help you become more emotionally intelligent in no time.

Take a Pause Before You Judge

Judging others is often a knee-jerk reaction that has become second nature to many of us. However, if you want to increase your emotional intelligence, you need to identify your judgmental thoughts and try to pause before you make a quick judgment. When you take the time to think about it, you may find that you are not upset at the person, but you are dealing with stress in another part of your life.

Become Aware of How You Feel

Rather than immediately trying to combat negative feelings, take some time to sit with them for a while first. Start to understand what it means for you to feel anger, resentment, or anger without an immediate fix can help you address what is causing you to feel those feelings and allows you to find a healthier way to deal with those emotions.

Learn to Take Criticism

No one likes to feel as though they are being criticized. However, learning to accept constructive criticism is a significant part of being emotionally intelligent. Understanding why that criticism might be necessary, and learning how to believe what is being said might be true and adapting your performance is a massive step for increasing your emotional intelligence.

Accept Your Weaknesses

No one is perfect, and that's alright. However, if you are looking to increase your emotional intelligence, it is imperative that you accept your weakness and learn from them, rather than simply denying that you have them. Learning to accept your shortcomings can significantly improve your emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is an essential aspect of both your personal and professional success. Following these five methods for increasing your emotional intelligence can significantly improve your life.

You Might Have Low Emotional Intelligence

Having low emotional intelligence, or EQ is an issue that can have a significant influence on your social relationships. Some experts even believe that emotional intelligence has more of an impact on your chances of overall success in life when compared to one's IQ. Your emotional intelligence can play a significant role in how you interact with others, and with low emotional intelligence, you might find social situations difficult and full of tension. Here are some of the top signs that might suggest you have low emotional intelligence.

Getting in a Lot of Arguments

You probably know someone who is incredibly combative with others, or you might be the one who tends to get into arguments with others. Family, friends, colleagues, and even random strangers might find themselves embroiled continuously in disputes with these argumentative people. Since people with low emotional intelligence tend to struggle with understanding other's emotions, they find themselves arguing without considering the feelings of others.

Not Understanding How Others Feel

People that have low emotional intelligence are often oblivious to the feelings of others. They simply don’t get that someone might be angry or irritated with them. Not only that, but they tend to feel annoyed that others expect them to know how they are feeling.

Believing Others Are Overly Sensitive

People who have low emotional intelligence might tell jokes at inappropriate times and become offended when someone calls them out. When others react to these out-of-line jokes, those with low emotional intelligence might feel that others are being too sensitive. People with low EQ find it challenging to understand the emotions of others, which makes it difficult for them to interpret the emotional tone after tragic events.

Refusing to Consider Other Points of View

Individuals with low EQ feel that they are right and will defend their position while refusing to listen to what others have to say. This is particularly true when others are critical of how the person doesn’t understand what others are feeling. Low EQ individuals are often pessimistic and overly critical of the feelings of others.

Blame Others for Your Mistakes

Individuals who have low emotional intelligence have very little insight into how their own emotions might lead to issues. When things start to go wrong in their lives, their first instinct is to blame others for their problems. They might suggest that they didn’t have a choice for what they did and that others simply don’t understand their situation.

Low emotional intelligence can wreak havoc in not only your life but the lives of others. If any of the above categories sound familiar to you, it might be time for you to work on improving your emotional intelligence.