Are you Emotionally Intelligent ?

I spent the past two days attending a course on Emotional Intelligence (EQ). It was interesting.. not only coz I had some basic info about the topic and was able to relate to it.. but also coz I felt I will benefit out of it in business and as well at home!.

EQ is the title of a book by Daniel Goleman in 19987 .. it can be defined as the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships ...

it is expected to gain much more importance in the business in the future. It was said during the course that IQ is genetic and cannot be really improved. While EQ is something we can learn and improve on. EQ looks into two sorts of skills.. the intra-personal skills.. which are internal within on self.. the inter-personal skills .. which relate to the skills in dealing between two (or more) people. EQ consists of the following five points, which are:

• Self-Awareness: where you have to first know your own self.. what are my strengths and weaknesses.
• Emotion Management: After knowing your own self, work on your emotions .. monitor them.. control them.. the emotions you need to foster and utilize more either at work or home force yourself to utilize.. in the other hand, the emotions that you have to minimize or eliminate you got to work on yourself in order to really reduce them.
• Self-Motivation: It is your ability to create the right environment to be able to work on the things you need to work on without waiting for others to either force you or either motivate you.
• Relationship Management: A person with high EQ will be able to establish positive personal relationships with others.
• Emotional Coaching: A person with high EQ is able to understand others, empathize with them and in the same time able to help them in improving their EQ.

For me, I really have problems with self-awareness, emotion management and emotional coaching. I already started working on monitoring my behavior while driving my car. I used to really swear and curse.. at least between me and myself!! .. I got to stop this.. and my tool is by being aware of the problem.. monitor my behavior, motivate and reward myself for good actions.. which are all related to my intra-personal skills!.

Another personality testing that I enjoyed and took more than once and the results were very consistent is the Myers Briggs Testing Indicator (MBTI). I have some more info about it in here … and my type is INFJ. I hope I will talk about it more in the future... and hope you enjoy knowing more about yourself as well!.