According to Psychology Today, emotional intelligence is “the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions,
as well as the emotions of others.”
There are many ways a person may display their emotional intelligence. When a situation arises it can look like,
identifying a feeling or thought, recognising how the feeling/thought impacts themself and others and executing the most appropriate
behaviour with consideration of others.
But how do we get there? We have to regulate our emotions so that we can build our emotional intelligence.
Emotional regulation requires consistent practice.
Emotional regulation looks like practising mindfulness - this can be anything which requires your 100% attention.
Examples of this include:
- Meditation
- Breathwork
- Journaling
- Eating with no distractions
- Focusing on one task at a time
- Spending intended time away from your phone
Here are some questions to practice your emotional regulation:
What am I feeling right now?
Where is my energy spent?
How is my behaviour affecting others?
Am I being mindful about what I am doing?
How can I be more mindful right now?
Science Daily refers to intelligent quotient (IQ) as “a score derived from a set of standardised tests developed to
measure a person's cognitive abilities in relation to their age group.”
This means that IQ is quantitative data about a person at a given time. It reflects how well a person performed within a
certain amount of given boundaries.
IQ focuses on the individual and their current state, we can say that IQ is objective, whereas emotional
intelligence is subjective.
Although IQ is objective and an attribute that can be easily tied to an individual, it does not mean that it is a correct
trait of that person.
As the questions within an IQ test have limitations - it does not take into account all kinds of intelligence,
such as an individual’s creativity and their social competency.
EQ on the other hand, focuses on the individual’s behaviour and the consideration of others.
It is subjective as it cannot be measured like IQ as EQ practices are embedded into daily life.
It is a practice that is ongoing, and does not compare against a population.
Both aspects of intelligence are not comparable.
