How to enhance Emotional Intelligence through habits?

Several habits and simple strategies to learn how to enhance Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence is a set of skills that, although we do not notice it, help us to cope with all kinds of complex situations to which we are exposed during the day to day. However, as with all psychological traits, the degree to which this type of intelligence is present in people varies greatly depending on each individual.

That is to say, not everyone has a good level of EQ. Fortunately, it is possible to take steps to "train" this aspect of oneself; in this article you will find several effective strategies to achieve this through habits to enhance Emotional Intelligenceexplained in a summarized way.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence is a psychological construct that groups together the abilities grouping skills of recognition, management and expression of emotions and feelings.. This concept arises from the idea that the classical or conventional definition of the term "intelligence" is too limited, as it is usually applied to processes associated with the use of language or mental representations associated with logic, geometry or mathematics.

Thus, researchers such as Peter Salovey, John D. Mayer or David Goleman have pointed out that there are aptitudes and mental capacities associated with the management of emotions that can be distinguished from the rest of the abilities linked to intelligence, and that at the same time have characteristics that are not only related to the management of emotions, but also to the management of the emotions.These have characteristics in common and can be studied scientifically.

Although in several aspects they overlap with some of the ramifications of general intelligence (especially with verbal skills), they are an entity of their own and help predict how easy it is for people to live while maintaining a good level of well-being and enjoying adequate social relationships.

Some of the capabilities included in Emotional Intelligence are the following:

• Ability to identify and distinguish between different emotions.
• Ease in creating situations and concepts that bring out the appropriate emotions in oneself at key moments.
• Use of appropriate strategies to channel and manage emotions.
• Detection of problematic behavior patterns when managing negative or positive emotions.
• Ease in recognizing emotions in others.
• Ability to adapt one's own behavior to the state.

Strategies to promote Emotional Intelligence

There are many ways to promote and enhance EQ, as it is composed of so many different mental and behavioral processes. However, there are some especially useful ones, and although the best way to progress in this aspect is to have the help of a psychologist, here you can find the most important ones that you can apply by yourself.

1. Develop habituation to negative emotions

To reinforce the Emotional Intelligence in you, you must assume the idea that it is not possible to completely block negative emotions, i.e. those that make you feel bad.. To achieve this, make sure you don't become obsessed with shutting out from your consciousness elements such as anxiety, fear, disgust, etc. Instead, when you experience them, get used to directing your attention to other sensations and stimuli.

2. Familiarize yourself with your emotions through a diary

To gain familiarity with the different emotions, it is useful to frequently put them into words and reflect on the nuances of each one of them. Therefore, one of the most useful strategies to enhance your Emotional Intelligence is to complete a diary of emotions for several months.

In its pages you will write about what you have felt at certain important moments of the day for you, and about the thoughts associated with those emotions and feelings.. Also include brief information about the context (place and time of day) in which each thing happened to you, and what you did just before and just after you felt that way.

By the way, the less time that passes between when you experienced it and when you write about it in your emotion journal, the better.

This is one of the tips to enhance emotional intelligence related to what is known as emotional labeling. This process consists of linking intense emotions to specific words and terms that could lead to dysfunctional behavior patterns (for example, falling into alcoholism to deal with sadness over the death of a loved one); it has been shown that this helps to manage these psychological contents properly, accepting their emotional charge and integrating them into our identity.

For this reason, part of the work done in psychotherapy consists of helping the person to understand through words what he or she is experiencing. to understand through words what is happening to him or herThis is to avoid generating taboos capable of giving rise to obsessive thoughts because the patient tries to keep them away from his consciousness at all costs.

3. Boost your capacity for self-motivation by always being clear about your goals.

In general, a short term and well-defined goal is almost always more motivating than an abstract goal that will only bring you satisfaction in the medium or long term..

Therefore, it is important that you learn to see the sub-goals in the more general goals that you set throughout your life. These will make it easier for you to feel good about your progress steadily as you move from one to another sequentially, and also make it less likely that the idea of tackling a very complex and lengthy task will intimidate you to the point of paralyzing you and making you give up on starting it.

In fact, orienting our mind towards concrete goals is a very good way of not letting the ambiguity and uncertainty caused by not fully understanding certain emotions paralyze us. These emotions and feelings can be motivational elements that we channel to get closer to our objectives.. Moreover, as we set out, we will see the implications of these emotions and experience will help us to understand them more and more through practice.

But to achieve it, it is necessary to make an effort to draw in our mind concrete goals with a date/time limit.

4. Learn to create contexts that bring out the desired emotions.

One of the keys to Emotional Intelligence is to learn that emotions do not arise from learning that emotions do not emerge out of nowhere, but are linked to the material reality around us.. Therefore, an effective way to enhance Emotional Intelligence is to learn which are the situations and environments that facilitate the emergence of certain emotions, and use this information in our favor.

For example, experiment with different contexts when working, seeing which elements of the space in which you perform your tasks make it easy for you to concentrate on what you have to do, which ones generate anxiety, which ones distract you, etc.

5. Start looking at how you manage negative emotions.

Another important aspect of Emotional Intelligence has to do with not self-sabotaging ourselves by performing actions of emotional discomfort management that not only do not solve that feeling of discomfort, but contribute to it in the long run. For example, there are those who confuse anxiety with hunger, so that when they feel an excess of stress or anguish they go straight to the fridge to eat something even though they are not really hungry. It is also common for poor control of emotions to facilitate the emergence of addictions.

So, propose to identify moments of the day in which emotions that make you feel bad make you feel the impulse to perform a certain action, and ask yourself if those actions are really an appropriate way to give vent to what you feel.Ask yourself if those actions are really an adequate way to give vent to what you feel.

Do you want to count on psychotherapeutic assistance?

The management of emotions is one of the aspects that are most worked on in psychotherapy. Therefore, if you are interested in having the support of a team of psychologists with many years of experience in patient care, we invite you to contact us.

At Avance Psychologists we have been working for more than two decades to help people overcome all kinds of difficulties and develop skills to live better. Our team of mental health experts works in the areas of individual psychological therapy, coaching, family and couple therapy, psychiatry and neuropsychology, and our sessions can be face-to-face at our center located in Madrid or through the online therapy format.