The 10 benefits of emotional intelligence

Discover to what extent you can be happier thanks to emotional intelligence (EI).

Emotional Intelligence (EI), a concept made popular by Daniel Golemanis the ability to identify, understand and regulate one's own emotions and those of others.

There are many researches that have demonstrated its benefits, and this has made that for little more than two decades it has been applied in the work environment as well as in the educational or clinical environment.

Benefits of Emotional Intelligence

But what are these benefits? Why is emotional intelligence important for people? In today's article we explain it to you. It is up to you to put these tips and suggestions into practice, and benefit from a better quality of life.

Let's get started.

1. Improves self-knowledge and decision making

The self-knowledge has a positive effect on self-esteem and self-confidence in various everyday situations. Also It also allows people to evaluate their value system and beliefs, helps to detect strengths and weaknesses in order toIt helps to detect strengths and weaknesses in order to improve and is necessary to make better decisions in life.

One aspect that is part of emotional intelligence is self-knowledge. Therefore, improving emotional intelligence is improving self-knowledge.

2. Improves work performance

Emotional intelligence applied to work is extremely useful in different aspects. For example, it improves employee productivity, improves occupational health, improves customer service, etc.etc.

• If you want to know more about the benefits of emotional intelligence at work, you can read our article: "The benefits of emotional intelligence at work".

3. Protects and prevents stress

Proper emotional management is as important to protect against stress as it is to avoid provoking it. Imagine a work situation in which a lack of empathy and poor regulation of one's emotions leads to continuous arguments with your boss or a co-worker. In the long run these arguments can generate a bad working environment, and, as a consequence, a stressful environment.

Now imagine that you are the boss, and that poor emotional management makes you an intolerant person. It is clear that your subordinates are going to suffer from your lack of emotional control, which can become a stressor for the workers you manage. That is why it is important to it is important to have an environment with emotional intelligence, to protect us from the wear and tear of day-to-day work..

4. Improve interpersonal relationships

Returning to the previous point, the example shows that emotional intelligence is a determining factor in maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships. Knowing and understanding your own emotions and those of others helps you to deal better with conflicts, something that can be inevitable when living with other people.This can be unavoidable when living with other people.

Also, remember that relationships are often a constant negotiation, and maintaining emotional balance in those situations that can easily get out of hand can avoid a lot of Pain and misunderstandings.

5. It favors personal development

Emotional intelligence and personal development go hand in hand. In fact, coaches, i.e. experts in personal development, provide emotional intelligence tools to the students, provide emotional intelligence tools to coachees. coacheesThe personal development of an individual cannot be understood without the correct self-knowledge and management of one's own emotions.

6. Provides influence and leadership skills

Emotional intelligence is an essential competence for leaders. The leader's own emotional self-control or knowing how to understand others is a good demonstration of leadership skills.

In fact, many charismatic leaders, those with high emotional intelligence, such as transformational leaders, have proven to be the most efficient leaders in many research studies, since they motivate and increase the productivity and efficiency of the group.

7. Promotes psychological well-being

In recent years interest in emotional intelligence is growing thanks to the benefits it brings to psychological well-being.. Many current pathologies have to do with the correct emotional management, and therefore, it is applied as a therapeutic method.

However, it is not only used with adults, but also in many schools emotional intelligence is taught, as educational centers are increasingly aware of the importance of EI for the emotional health of students.

8. Reduces anxiety and helps overcome depression

Many people suffer from anxiety due to a negative evaluation of reality or incorrect control of emotions, and emotional intelligence can help prevent anxious symptoms.

Several research studies have shown that high scores on the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS), developed by Salovey in 1995, which includes three dimensions, (1) attention to feelings, (2) emotional clarity y (3) emotional repair, are associated with higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of anxiety..

9. Increases motivation and helps to achieve goals.

Several studies have shown that emotional intelligence is extremely important when it comes to achieving our goals, and, in fact, coaches use it to motivate their clients..

Emotional intelligence protects us in difficult situations, because self-knowledge can keep us afloat even when we want to give up or throw in the towel. For example, if we detect and know that feelings of frustration are part of life, we may be able to move forward even if not everything has gone as we wished.

10. Helps you sleep better

The improvement of the well-being and the emotional balance is positive to be able to fall asleep. It is common that the poor management of emotions causes us anxiety and generates problems for the day to day. All this is negative for our psychic and physical health, and influences our sleep..

Managing our emotions in the right way, accepting our negative emotions, understanding the emotions of others and regulating our behavior, is key to having a peaceful sleep and a life without major ups and downs.