3 Exercises To Increase Your Emotional Intelligence

Have you ever wondered what our emotional intelligence is? Have you ever wondered why it is important? Emotions exist because they provide us with valuable information, help us to adapt and change, and to improve our social lives.

But do you know how to interpret what they are trying to tell you?

In order to take full advantage of them, you need to identify and understand them. That way you will be able to see why you feel what you feel and what it means in different situations.

Increase your emotional knowledge, increase your emotional intelligence

More emotional knowledge will result in greater emotional intelligence.  It will give you the criterion you need to identify and differentiate between your and others’ feelings. You will also understand why you feel them and how they can help you. You need emotional knowledge and experience to be able to regulate them effectively and keep them from giving you a lot of bad feelings.

If your emotional intelligence is underdeveloped, you will now have several good reasons to try to develop it. So how can you get to know your emotional side?

You can start by making a weekly log where you write down all the emotions you experience throughout the day and the situations you were in when you felt them. Then you will become more aware of which emotions are most dominant in your life. This will also help you to see that we often experience conflicting emotions.

To sharpen your ability to identify them, make a list of questions and answers. It could be, for example, “what feeling was that?” And “how did it feel?” It will help you to follow what you have observed that pointed to some emotion.

Exploiting your emotional intelligence

Once you have increased your emotional intelligence and learned to identify your feelings, it’s time to put it into practice. The goal is to understand the function of your emotions and see how they push you into action. The idea is to understand that everyone has different thoughts, feelings and intentions. This knowledge will be useful in social contexts.

To be able to do that, practice understanding emotions in different situations. This can be anything from those you are not involved in in any way, such as videos or people’s stories, to conflicts you have been involved in.

Now you are aware of the emotions and situations you want to practice. Furthermore, it can help to divide the situation into sequences as they develop. For each of them and for each person involved, analyze it. Analyze what they say, do and think and what feelings they have.

It will make you more aware that emotions, thoughts and behaviors are related. Eventually, you will understand that what you think and feel does not always match what others think and feel. Lastly, you will understand the motivating function of emotions that we mentioned. You will see that emotions inform us and help us get what we need.

Do not try to analyze emotions all the time!

As with everything else in life, you need to use your emotional knowledge in a balanced way. Yes, it can not help you if you do not have it. But it can also not help you when you are constantly focused on your emotions and bodily sensory experiences. Therefore, learn to hold back if you have begun to analyze every emotion you have. If not, there is a chance that you will lose the dynamic control of your emotions.

For an entire week, give yourself half an hour to think about what upset you and what you are unable to get out of your head. And feel uncomfortable feelings, do not avoid them. This exercise is not for you to roll over in your misery. Instead, it is for you to give yourself enough space to feel it.

If you feel an uncomfortable feeling, do not let it circulate in your brain. Do not feel it until the half hour you have set aside for it. During that time, sit in a quiet place where you will not be interrupted and set the alarm for 30 minutes. When it goes off, go back to your daily activities.

Do these exercises and you will be able to harness your emotional intelligence. You will be empowered to use your emotions for the benefit of your physical and mental health. It is normal to have negative emotions, but it is important to learn to identify them so that you do not feel them too often, too intensely and for too long periods.

Photos: Aral Tasher, Alejandro Alvarez and Averie Woodard