No factor can accurately predict personal success better than emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is a measure of how in tune you are with both your personal emotions and the emotions of those around you. EQ encompasses a whole lot more than feelings too. It involves a sense of awareness in regard to how people tend to react and make decisions in response to certain stimuli. Therefore, emotional intelligence can help you become more self-aware while helping you predict or intuit the reactions of others.
Gaining the skills required for EQ is particularly important for those who want to succeed. 90% of the worlds top performers have a high EQ, and studies track 58% of all career success to EQ-derived skills and traits. Studies have also shown that emotional intelligence can factor into employability, leadership potential, and relationship success both in professional and personal lives. They indicate that those with a high EQ tend to be happier and have better mental health overall.
If you want to succeed in sales and other careers, follow these guidelines to learn how to flex your EQ muscles and gradually strengthen them.
Emotional Intelligence
Accurate Self-Perception
We humans certainly are a narcissistic lot! We tend to ignore our worst traits and exaggerate our best ones. We have a tendency to diminish our role in negative outcomes and amplify it in positive ones.
Paradoxically, narcissism can include self-pity, not just cockiness. If we spend all day obsessing over whether someone thought we acted like a doofus at the company Christmas party when, in reality, they did not give our behavior a second thought, that is also a form of self-centered thinking.
Try to diminish the effect your ego can have on your thought process and instead try to be legitimately more self-aware. Unlike being self-conscious, being self-aware means paying attention to your surroundings, your actions, and your body language at all times while still remaining relaxed.
You can increase self-awareness through exercises, such as asking "why" three times before making a decision and being honest with the answers. Over time, you can stop deceiving yourself and focus more objectively on your actions and behaviors.
Learn to Focus on Others
Active Listening
Part of getting out of your own head is getting inside others' heads. Start by becoming a better listener. Pay close attention to the body language and behaviors of others. Ask people questions about their feelings and the decisions they make.
Try not to make assumptions or ask leading questions, but instead, truly try to understand people as they see themselves, not how you see them. Focusing on others can quickly lead to being more empathetic and intuitive about how people might react to something.
Practice Self Control
Social Awareness
Once you become more self-aware, you can deliberately stop habits that may cause others to feel uncomfortable or irritated.
People generally enjoy being around someone who is trusting, friendly, cooperative, humble, and generous. They find these traits rewarding. Unrewarding people are often guarded, suspicious, selfish, and pessimistic, and they will not hesitate to "speak their minds" in a cruel way.
You can start adopting more congenial traits by acknowledging other people's perspectives and being less quick to judge or dismiss something. You can also learn to display humility to avoid sounding arrogant or combative.
Finally, recognize when emotions may cause you to make a decision—such as getting irritated after someone asks the same question in a meeting three weeks in a row—and try to wait until your emotion has subsided before responding.
Conclusion
A Journey to Change
Doing all of this takes time, and like any journey for self-change, we gradually learn lessons and improve. With practice, we can learn to be smarter about others' emotions and our own in an effort to build better relationships with both our clients and our co-workers.
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