7 exercises and activities to develop your Emotional Intelligence

We review some simple habits and practices to improve your self-awareness.

Emotional Intelligence is one of the constructs that has gained more popularity in recent decades in the field of psychology, as it has been shown to be key in job performance, education and sports, and is essential for the welfare of people, their happiness and personal development.

Fundamentally, it is the set of our mental skills aimed at identifying and regulating our emotions and feelings, as well as recognizing them in other people to better empathize.

If you still don't know what is Emotional Intelligence and want to know about it in detail, I invite you to read these two articles:

• "What is Emotional Intelligence? Discovering the importance of emotions".
• "The 10 benefits of emotional intelligence".

Exercises and activities to develop your Emotional Intelligence.

If you already know what Emotional Intelligence is and what its benefits are, the next step is to put it into practice. Here is a list of activities and tips that will allow you to develop your EQ.

1. Keep your emotions diary

To start practicing EQ on a daily basis, there is nothing better than keeping an emotional diary. This activity is simple, as it is similar to the classic teenage diary.

To keep an emotional diary, just take 10 or 20 minutes a day, preferably before going to bed, to review how your day has gone on an emotional level.. If, for example, you feel that you have been experiencing stress and are feeling sad, write it down. Review how you felt during the week and compare it to the previous week.

It is important that you add strategies to feel better, ie, tasks that you can do to avoid excess negative emotions.. With the emotion diary it is possible to work on emotional self-awareness and emotional regulation as you use it. This strategy is useful for understanding your emotions and for giving you feedback about how you feel.

2. Active listening: observe non-verbal language

Active listening is one of the social skills that we should all possess but rarely put into practice. There is a big difference between listening and hearing. Active listening focuses not only on the words, i.e. it takes into account the non-verbal language.Active listening focuses not only on words, i.e. it takes into account non-verbal language and the communication of emotions.

To do this in your day-to-day life, you need to take a few minutes out of your conversations to voluntarily listen actively. You may think it's simple, but it's common that instead of paying full attention to the other person's paying full attention to the other person's communicationInstead of paying full attention to the other person's communication, our thoughts and beliefs contaminate our interpersonal communication. So the next time you are in front of someone, take a few minutes to observe their body language, gestures, looks, expressions and the emotions the other person is trying to convey.

3. The wheel of life

The wheel of life is one of the most effective techniques to get to know ourselves and correct those areas of our life with and correct those areas of our life with which we are not happy. Performing this exercise takes no more than 20 minutes and its operation is very simple. Its effectiveness is such that even personal development experts use this technique.

This technique helps us to know what our desires and needs are, which are oftenwhich are often hidden by social demands. Therefore, it is a way to empower ourselves in front of life, to put down on paper what we really want and what is important to us. This way we can have a clearer vision of where we want to go, from outside our head.

To do this exercise, we need a piece of paper with a circle on it so that we can write down what areas of our life are important to us. what areas of our life are important to us and what we want to work on.. For example, work, friendships, partner, family, leisure... Then, it is necessary to evaluate each variable with a score that shows our preference. For example, if work is the most important, we will put the number "1". Once we are clear about the order of preference, it is necessary to write down different actions to improve our life.

4. Vipassana meditation

There are different types of meditation, and although many people think that this technique only serves to calm down, some of these meditative practices are really useful to improve Emotional Intelligence. One of the best known is the vipassana meditation.. In fact, vipassana is a Pali term that means "observation" or "clear vision".

Vipassana meditation emphasizes awareness and mindfulness of the breath, focusing the mind on the air and the breath.by focusing the mind on the air entering and exiting through the nose. When the mind begins to ruminate, it is necessary to label thoughts and emotions, observe them and let them go, accepting them.

5. Stop for a minute

Emotional regulation is also one of the keys to EQ and interpersonal relationships. But it is not always possible to stop for a minute of our lives to analyze the present moment. Imagine you are in collective bargaining at work and things are getting out of hand. The atmosphere has become tense and you are not reaching an agreement because there is a certain tone of tension. You may want to stop for a moment, clear your head, and respond and negotiate with your head rather than your heart.

You can learn to relax and control your emotions with the one-minute meditation. Once you have perfected it, you can use it anytime, anywhere. In the example above (collective bargaining), if things get out of hand, it's always best to take a 5-minute break so that the waters can be brought back to normal and the negotiation can be resumed calmly. can be resumed calmly. In such a situation you could take advantage of this break to practice this exercise.

5. Read a book

It is possible to work on Emotional Intelligence skills and improve them over time. If you want to enjoy its benefits, it is a good option to read one of the many books on this subject that are on the market. These texts are a good way to acquire both theoretical and practical knowledge, and you will surely notice the difference.and you will surely notice the difference. The variety of books is such that you can even help your children to develop EQ if you wish.

In the following article you can find a list of books that will surely be useful for you: "10 books on emotional intelligence that you need to read".

6. Sign up for a workshop

If reading a book on Emotional Intelligence is a great option to improve your emotional and interpersonal skills, even better is to sign up for a workshop, even better is to sign up for a personal growth course on this topic of the many course on this topic of the many that are available. The truth is that this is a good way to carry out experiential and experiential group practices.

In addition, you can also opt, for example, for any of the courses in Emotional Intelligence offered by specialized centers, which allow you to receive quality training in online format and from anywhere with an Internet connection. Thus, people interested in perfecting the mental skills linked to EQ can get involved in a very accessible and quality training program.

7. Attend coaching sessions

In addition to these last two options, it is possible to attend coaching sessions to develop your EQ. A coach is an expert in personal development who will help you to know yourself better and develop your emotional skills, as well as accompany you in the process of change to improve your well-being and overcome your limiting beliefs.

The coach will provide you with tools that will help you to improve your Emotional Intelligence and, in addition, to achieve your goals and objectives. If the coach has university training as a psychologist, so much the better.