How to develop emotional intelligence EQ. EQ Fitness: Emotional Intelligence Exercises

“Emotions lead to delusions and this is their value, the value of science is in its unemotionality.”

"The Picture of Dorian Grey".

Have you ever noticed how emotions distort or transform reality? In psychology, there is a special term "Emotional Intelligence" and it has a special designation - EQ. They started talking about him again at the beginning of the Zero. Let's talk about what this concept is and how to develop emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence management became of interest to me long before I heard this term. It was an intuitive understanding that the development of the situation, or the lack of results, is influenced not only by my thoughts, but also by my reaction to them, the emotional state. Rather, it is emotions that form thoughts, and not vice versa. Negative thoughts appear precisely because a person does not have complete information about current events, worries, experiences fear, resentment, anger and from certain expectations. Agree, most conflicts arise because our loved ones do not behave the way we expect them to. Psychologists note that clarifying the relationship, or who is right, occurs because a person does not receive strong, vivid, positive sensations from reality, and the struggle is designed to compensate for this shortcoming.

Stressful situations become a gold mine for a certain circle of people. This includes soothsayers, magicians, fortune-tellers, psychics. Various sessions act like morphine, they remove the negative for a while, leaving positive experiences and a feeling of relaxation. As a result, the client comes again to get not the prediction itself, but the confidence that everything will be in order. This is at best.

Some of the psychics and magicians deliberately increase the level of anxiety of clients in order to inspire even more fear and, in this way, lure large sums of money. They cling to what is important to a person: relationships with a loved one, health, and so on. Emotional intelligence exercises helped me move away from constant feelings of fear and anxiety, think soberly and seek constructive solution problems without resorting to third parties for help. I will talk about several effective techniques.

The concept of emotional intelligence

Psychologists Kahneman and Smith conducted research in the field of behavioral psychology, for which they were awarded nobel prize. They managed to prove that most people, when making decisions, are guided by emotions, not logic.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to see one's strengths and weaknesses and accept them in other people, the ability to share personal feelings and facts. There are low and high levels of emotional intelligence. A low level of emotional intelligence is characterized by such emotions:

envy;
criticism;
condemnation;
tunnel vision of the situation (a person sees only one possible variant development of events and, most often, in negative tones);
suppression of feelings;
a high level of emotional intelligence is characterized by:
mental flexibility;
variability of thinking (a person can find many options for the development of events and work out each of them in detail);

EQ - intelligence helps to find mutual language with people of different social groups and ages. Emotional intelligence management is useful in business, sales, and any team work that requires organizing and inspiring people.

Why is it needed

Not everyone understands why it is necessary to develop EQ - intelligence. There are several reasons for this:

Adequate assessment of one's own capabilities, acceptance of strong and weaknesses your personality, effective use internal resources.
Understanding the causes of certain emotions.
Understanding and caring for the feelings of others, family.
Understanding the needs of other people and building a line of behavior based on them.
Acceptance and understanding of the conditions of objective reality.
Management of emotions, quick search for solutions in a given situation.

You will receive not only emotional stability but also the respect of other people, both in the team and on the part of the management. A person who can understand others can grow up to be a good leader. You can, for example, write your own book on managing emotions, or become the head of a company, or maybe in the future you will conduct trainings yourself personal growth? Today this direction is very popular, the experience of people who, without special education were able to sort themselves out and rise to the new level welfare.

Such masters include, for example, Joe Vitale, who became a multi-millionaire after a few years of living on the street, or Niko Bauman, who wrote a series of books on the power of mental focus without any special education. The young author founded his own online school, conducts webinars and intensives in which he teaches people to control their attention and direct emotions in the right direction.

stages

Experts distinguish 4 stages of development of emotional intelligence:

Clear and intelligible communication with other people, the ability to listen and the ability to explain expectations. The ability to motivate people to action, teamwork, leadership of a small group of people, the ability not to get involved in open conflict.
Feeling comfortable among a large group of people, regardless of whether you classify yourself as an introvert or extrovert, the ability to understand the emotions of other people, rare cases of misunderstanding with someone.
Knowledge and acceptance of all positive and negative sides their personality, a comfortable existence with them, an understanding of their emotions and their influence on ongoing events.
Skillful management of emotions, limiting their destructive influence, the ability to fulfill promises and obligations, maintaining long-term relationships, acting according to circumstances.

Development Methods

Let's take a look at 7 main ways to develop emotional intelligence in adults.

Refrain from sharing feelings. From an early age we are taught to divide things into categories: this is good, this is bad, there is black and white. But such a division is very subjective, because in general you don’t know what prompted a person to commit a not too good deed from the point of view of society. Maybe if you were in that situation, you would do worse. This is me to the fact that there are semitones in the world. Anger, for example, is classified as a bad emotion, but there is a hidden desire for everything to become better than it is, and this is already a positive side. For many people, during a fit of anger, a source of inner strength opens up. Refusal to separate emotions into “good” and “bad” helps to understand the reason for the emergence of those that are commonly called negative.
Write down the emotions you experienced during the day. By keeping diary entries, you can easily track what has served trigger to trigger the experience. In addition, over time, you will be able to track how your reaction to a similar situation has changed. Write without limiting yourself and you will understand what makes you worry, how you react, for example, to fear, and what makes you move on.
Observe people and situations that make you feel a wave of strong emotions. Describe in the diary the physical sensations of the experienced emotions.
If you find it difficult to track and write down your emotions, watch your preferences: what you prefer to watch, listen to, read about, what fills your mind day by day. What songs or movies do you feel intercom why did you make this choice? Which characters and why do you feel inner sympathy? Answering these questions will help you start tracking your emotions.
Sometimes our emotions and words are spoken by other people, in the lines of a song, in a speech, in a movie. They experience the same emotions as you, which makes you feel a certain euphoria. You can remember a few catchy episodes.
The surest way to understand another person is to put yourself in their place. Think about how you would feel under those circumstances or if the other person told you what you said.
Think over the worst scenario of the development of events, what will you do in this case, how can you get out of the situation? This will help you calm down.

Own your emotions, do not let them control you, you are the masters of your life. Even the most unpleasant situation can be changed simply by looking at it from a different point of view. By sorting out what makes you uncomfortable, you can become strong personality, because the internal state does not depend on the money in your pocket, or on the position, or on the presence or absence of a partner nearby. You are the creator of everything that happens, it is in your power to take off or fall.

We want ourselves and our children to be successful and happy. But we often forget that it is impossible to put an equal sign between these concepts. You can be successful, but at the same time constantly feel unhappy. Or you can constantly experience difficulties in your studies or career, but treat them not as a tragedy, but as a step forward.

Why are emotions so important?

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.
Charles Swindoll, writer

The modern world is full stressful situations which are difficult to handle even for adults, not to mention children. They do not understand and do not know what emotions they experience at one time or another, how to manage them, therefore they have a distorted idea of what is happening. This leads to neurosis, apathy and other depressive states.

Exaggerated demands of teachers, instilling in a small personality the importance of victory and superiority (many want to be the parents of winners) - all this is too heavy a load for fragile children's shoulders. The heavier this burden, the more important it is to deal with the feelings and experiences of the child.

Already in adulthood we see that people who cannot control their emotions have trouble in all areas of life, including in their careers.

When a person is overwhelmed by negative emotions and cannot objectively evaluate his feelings, desires and opportunities, a devastating effect is guaranteed.

Relations with others deteriorate, a person withdraws into himself, loses faith in himself, his strength or his professionalism, becomes irritable, becomes even more confused in his feelings. And then the question arises: “What level of emotional intelligence does he have?”

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is responsible for recognizing and correctly interpreting emotions. It is he who gives a person psychological flexibility and the ability to effectively interact with the outside world.

That is why the concept of "emotional intelligence" was first voiced in relation to career building and self-realization. However, psychologists immediately caught the infantile subtext in this, because the fundamental development of the personality occurs precisely in childhood.

For a child, the development of EQ is an opportunity to create a streamlined and understandable system of perception that will allow you to effectively interact with people around you, perceive criticism correctly, recognize the feelings of adults and peers and adequately respond to them.

aggression, apathy, bad dream, absent-mindedness, inability to establish contacts with peers and other disturbing manifestations in the child's behavior are obvious signals that indicate the need to develop emotional intelligence.

How to develop emotional intelligence from childhood?

The most important thing in the life of any child is parental love. Love your child, show him tenderness and care. Tactile communication between mother and child does not lose its significance for children older than infancy.

Love makes every person feel secure and confident. This is a reliable foundation for the development of a successful personality.

In addition, it is very important to create the right associations with different emotions. Show your child real example what is joy. Maybe it's the smell of the cake? Maybe ringing a bell? What about friendship? Do you associate friendship with hugs? If not, then what does it look like in your imagination?

Create a colorful and bright world in which every feeling and sensation has its own color, aroma and taste. So you will not only open the doors to the world of emotions for the child, but also get closer to him, further strengthen the trust between you.

A similar method works for . Do not just read, but play fairy tales, tell children magical stories through a game or a small performance. Play a scene in front of them, use tactile sensations, aroma oils, appropriate intonation - this will allow the child to feel the whole gamut of sincere emotions that a magical story evokes.

Each of these methods is well described in our book Monsiki. What are emotions and how to deal with them. Ours, because we created it together with my son Gleb, based on our own experience. It can safely be called detailed guide for parents, where one of the most effective methods EQ development is shown through interaction with fairy tale characters Monsic. Each of them represents a certain emotion and has skills that will help children understand these emotions and deal with them with various difficulties. Monsics are kind fairy creatures and a fairy tale is best perceived by a child.

Working on emotional intelligence in childhood is the key to successful development and well-being in the future.

Most likely, such a child, as an adult, will be able to avoid most of the psychological problems with which modern society confronts us today.

Children are more receptive to everything new, their psyche is like plasticine - flexible and ingenuous. But what will be molded from this plasticine often depends only on adults. So let's start with ourselves.

Simple EQ Exercises

The EQ development methodology is simple and straightforward, but requires care and regular practice. Here are the most simple and effective exercises.

Mindfulness exercises

emotional diary

To learn to be aware of yourself here and now, write down every three hours the emotion that you are experiencing at the moment. At the end of the day, isolate the prevailing emotion and think about what needs to be worked on.

After a couple of weeks, you will learn to feel in real time without any difficulties.

This exercise will be made more effective by a kind of check - an analysis of the physical state when experiencing a certain emotion. This practice is also good for improving health.

Stop!

How often are our actions accompanied by ? We do not think about what we are doing, but simply perform some familiar, regular manipulations. Exercise "Stop!" is to abruptly stop any action in order to get rid of inertia and allow yourself to think about the situation. Only in this way can you feel yourself here and now, begin to control your reality.

Self-Esteem Exercises

What a luck!

Teach yourself to think positively, reacting even to unpleasant events with the phrase: “What luck!”. Such a reaction will come as a surprise to others, but this fact will also benefit you, because then you will find even more advantages in the situation. To enhance the effect, you can use the phrase: "It's so great, because ...". Why? Think about it.

Sell your flaw

An effective technique that allows you to interpret even negative sides personality in a positive way. Tell the audience about your shortcoming in other words, give it a different color. For example, can caution be considered cowardice, and courage recklessness? But it all depends on which side you look at. The synthon approach relies on a positive approach to development. He says: you have no flaws, you have features.

You need to develop your strengths and work on your weaknesses.

With this approach, you can sell any of your shortcomings. For example, sell insecurity. Tell the audience honestly and truthfully how you, having this quality, before taking an important step, consider all options for events, look at various solutions and only then do you take the most advantageous step for you.

Motivation Exercises

Openness to new

To develop this valuable quality in yourself, you can use a simple, but very effective exercise, which is to find as many options as possible for the most common things. Let it be ordinary towel, an old bucket or just a piece of cardboard. Come up with as many options as you can use these things. It is not only interesting, but also fun. Therefore, practice this exercise with your family and children. They will have a great time and work on their imagination and ingenuity.

Two random words

Open any book or magazine, randomly select any two words from the text and try to find something in common between them. Compare them, analyze, reflect and make relationships. It's efficient and fun.

An exercise to increase adaptability

Finally - known method Elevator Pitch - presentation of your business project in 30-60 seconds. Imagine that you are your own business project. Start presenting yourself as brightly as possible, while remaining honest with yourself.

To get started, use this template:

Profession.
Hobby.
How do I change the world for the better?

Each of these exercises will help you become better emotionally and psychologically. However, do not take emotional intelligence as a universal key to success. Life is quite multifaceted. Therefore, improve your mind, body, soul and love yourself. After all, the only thing we have control over in this world is ourselves.

To date, everyone knows the role emotional competence in the success of any business, any person. Relationships in the family and at work, setting true goals, motivation for action, quality of life directly depend on emotional competence And that's just the first thing that comes to mind.

We all want to enjoy life, work, communication with people close and not so, and we all face difficulties from time to time, even crises, and how we cope with them depends on the quality of our life and our personal and professional growth. Often our behavior consists of a small set of behaviors, patterns that are triggered by our emotions and it happens so quickly that we don't even notice it.

For example, there are people who plan their day in great detail, but if someone or something violates their plans, they get very annoyed and even angry, while taking out their anger on others. And only after a while they ask themselves the question: Why is this so?

To understand where this behavior comes from, it is important to ask yourself the question: “Why do I have plans to do more, move towards my goals, or is there something else that I do not notice? And what did I feel right before the anger? Most often, such behavior is demonstrated by people whose leading need is safety, the plan for the day gives us an understanding of what will happen in the next moment and, accordingly, be ready for it.

Thus, they satisfy the need for security, but when they do not have such an understanding, anxiety arises (low intensity of fear), and the more uncertainty, the less the need for security is satisfied, the higher the intensity of fear. This is a stressful state that takes a lot of energy, which we so lack to achieve our true goals.

Want to know what your driving need is? Where are your powers going?

If so, then there is only one way out! Learn to be aware of your emotions, understand what triggers them, and hence the usual ways to satisfy them.

Emotion is not a reason to indulge in all serious, it is information, maybe even the most valuable information in our life. Each person has leading psychological needs, on the degree of satisfaction of which our happiness depends, and emotions are a compass that tells us how far we are approaching or moving away from satisfying our leading needs.

It's not easy, we don't know what we want, what makes us happy, our parents didn't teach us to feel, and their parents didn't teach them. Only the iron conviction has come down to us that feelings interfere, there is a lot of pain in them and it is impossible to control them.

As a result, we are lost. Today, many are looking for themselves, and you can find yourself only with the help of feelings. Start feeling!

But that's not all, but only the first step of development emotional intelligence. And there are 4 of them in total:

Understanding yourself
Self management
Understanding others
Managing others

These are 4 EQ competencies that are developed only sequentially one after another. Since it is impossible to control what you do not understand, just as it is impossible to understand another without understanding yourself, just as it is impossible to understand another without being able to control yourself, because in the captivity of our states our view of another person is distorted.

Well, to manage the states of other people is highest degree actual development emotional intelligence.

The magnitude of emotional intelligence, abbreviated as EQ in the specialized literature, determines how much a person understands, understands them, can recreate, manage them, and therefore apply them to solve tasks. A person with a well-developed emotional intelligence can significantly reduce the impact of negative emotions on their lives. The development of emotional intelligence contributes to the recognition negative impacts from the outside, a calm understanding of the situation and a normal, balanced reaction to it. A person who is emotionally developed lets go of negative emotions, does not experience them again and again, thereby destroying his psyche in particular and life in general.

To understand in more detail what benefits the development of emotional intelligence provides, you can use the diagram below:

If you want to easily find a common language even with unfamiliar people, be friendly and open, and therefore pleasant in communication, if your goal is to achieve maximum success in any business, then you just need to work on developing your own EI.

How to develop emotional intelligence

1. Recognize emotions and identify critical moments.

Lose control own behavior, explode because of someone's words, lose calm from scratch? Ah, how familiar! Each person has a certain boiling point caused by a situation that leads to a loss of self-control - the so-called emotional trigger. People who know how to recognize them, and therefore accept them, can stop in time and not succumb to destructive emotions.

How to learn such control? Analyze your emotions, fix them on paper, highlight your own emotional triggers.

2. Repeat mentally over and over again those situations that lead to emotional breakdowns.

Constant scrolling in the head of this or that situation helps to find the right solution and not react as violently as it could happen in real life. When considering a case that could lead to an emotional breakdown, come up with a different course of action than your usual one. This exercise will allow you to correctly accept the emotional trigger. This means that you will get a chance to act differently when a real explosive situation occurs.

3.Load up your brain.

Anyone can control their mind and. As soon as you feel anger rising, switch to something else, such as solving difficult problems. math problems. Agree, it’s hard to get angry and nervous when you multiply three-digit numbers in your head!

Whether you solve the problem correctly or not does not matter. The main thing is that you tried, used your brain to its fullest and did not let your emotions defeat you.

4. Move away from reality into memories.

If in a difficult moment it is difficult for you to concentrate, then use a different technique: abstract from what is happening and immerse yourself in pleasant memories. Surely there is something in your life that puts a smile on your face. It could be your favorite song or a book you recently read. Remember them, quote your favorite lines to yourself. Such thoughts will help to avoid an emotional breakdown, as they will switch your brain to a different situation.

The main thing is not to perceive this technique as a cowardly escape from reality. This is done for your benefit.

5. Before sending an angry letter to the addressee, reread what you have written.

Thus, you will take at least a few minutes of time out, once again experience what you experienced when writing, you will be able to rethink the overflowing emotions. You take a break - and it's wonderful. You have a chance to change your mind, to fix everything. If, after reading, you still want to send a letter, ask a friend or loved one read it. Listen to advice from the outside and think twice about whether to offend the addressee. Learn to keep your emotions in check!

Research confirms that all people think differently. A rather neutral message can actually cause aggression on the part of the recipient. To understand how the addressee will react to your letter, remember the character of the person to whom you are writing. Correct the message so as not to offend your addressee.

6. Get away from the immediate answer.

Modern life sometimes requires lightning-fast decisions from us. But often you can not force events and take a minute to think. Do you need a clear answer? Avoid having to respond right away. Say that you will return to this conversation and take a break to think. This will allow you to understand what is really important, and not let emotions prevail over reason.

7.Respect the interlocutor in any situation.

Remember that, in any situation, you need to remain a well-mannered, educated person, express your thoughts clearly and clearly, avoiding profanity. This will characterize you as a serious, solid person who is a pleasure to deal with. Emotions may rage in your soul, but you should not show them. To curb them, it is better to think over your vocabulary in advance and highlight those words that are better not to say out loud.

Once you make the decision to be calm and composed in any situation, you will take a big step towards curbing your emotions and developing emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the development of such skills as understanding both one's own feelings and the emotions of others. Thanks to this, we can effectively manage the reaction to the feelings of others and, thus, be more productive in our work. The main task in developing emotional intelligence is not to suppress or ignore difficult emotions or feelings, but to intelligently control them.

Emotional intelligence is what separates successful leaders from everyone else. more productive in hiring new employees, better motivating colleagues, efficient in the service sector. But emotional intelligence is important at any stage of your career, especially if you want to achieve high level responsibility for your work. And in other aspects of life, EI allows you to be happier, healthier and strengthen relationships. So how do you improve emotional intelligence and make it work for you?

1. Develop emotional self-awareness

Emotions can cause a person to behave in unusual and often unproductive ways, and self-awareness will improve your ability to understand and interpret own emotions moods and internal motives. This practice will help you recognize emotional states other people and understand what is behind their words and actions. In short, if you don't understand your own motivations and behaviors, you won't understand others either.

What to do for this:

Speak three phrases every day that begin with the words “I feel …” - through this technique, you will gradually learn to accurately identify your emotions and increase self-awareness.
Take time each day to experience the emotion - articulate how you feel and why.
Remind yourself that emotions are fickle and short-lived, and therefore cannot be the basis for communication and decision making.
Think about how negative emotions- disappointment, rejection, anger or jealousy - affect your colleagues and clients.
Identify your fears and desires. This will help you better understand what worries you and drives you.
Check how you react to stress. Do you get frustrated every time something doesn't go the way you planned?

2. Emotional self-control

It is important to develop the ability to control impulsive reactions and emotions that negatively affect your potential and leadership. This is the next step after the development of self-awareness. In short, self-control is the ability to rise above pathetic explanations, jealousy, relapses, and not let your emotions control you. Through self-control, you will think before you act and build a reputation as a reliable member of any team.

Self-control techniques:

Do not allow yourself to join one side or the other during office dramas and conflicts.
If the situation is emotionally difficult and charged, step back for a while, do not make a decision right away. Analyze your emotions.
Accept the fact that life is volatile and frustration and disappointment are part of any job. And the professional response to them is brainstorming and strategy development, not complaints and suspension from work.
Don't join the blame game, don't point fingers at everyone and everything around you. Except for yourself: learn and accept your mistakes.
Stay focused on yourself and the things you can control, not on things that are out of your control.
Find ways to respond to emotions that don't involve spontaneous reactions or bad language.

3. Develop the ability to show empathy

Sympathy - natural way in the development of emotional self-awareness. It allows you to move away from your personal experience and see and understand the problem from another person's point of view. By developing empathy, you show your ability to treat people with respect, kindness, dignity, and professionalism. Empathetic people are good at recognizing the feelings of others, even if they are not obvious.

How to develop empathy:

Live by the golden rule - treat others the way you want to be treated.
It is easy to maintain your point of view, guided by this feeling, put yourself in the place of another person and look at the situation from his position.
Develop the ability to listen and reflect on what your interlocutor said.
At least once a day, ask how the person is feeling, for example, on a scale of 0 to 10. This will encourage others to express their emotions and understand them better.
Acknowledge other people's anxieties and feelings - let them know that you see their source and realize the value of their point of view.

4. Work on your motivation

Motivation is passion and enthusiasm in your work and career that cannot be explained by money or status, it is what helps you realize your internal goals and do it with enviable perseverance.

How to improve motivation:

In any difficult situation, and even in case of failure, try to find at least one good thing.
Record the moment when you think and speak in a negative way. Stop doing this, pause and once again “roll through” all your thoughts and words in your mind. Change them to positive ones, even if you have to pretend at first.
It's easy to forget what you really love about your job. Take time to remember and articulate it, and main reason why you want to be successful in what you do.
Remember that people are attracted to positive, energetic and inspiring people. If you increase motivation, you will get more attention from colleagues, top managers and clients.
Set yourself inspiring yet achievable goals. Make a list of what needs to be done to achieve them. Reward yourself when you reach key goals.

5. Improve your communication skills

An important aspect of emotional intelligence is the ability to interact well with other people, but this does not mean that introverts or shy people have low EI. Communication skills can take different forms, because this is not only the ability to be friendly, but also the ability to listen, persuade, verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Leaders with high emotional intelligence are often very good at communicating, resolving conflicts and sharing their vision with the team - they set an example of behavior and values that others can follow.

How to improve communication skills:

Study conflicts and their solutions, this will help in difficult situations with colleagues, clients or suppliers.
Learn to praise others, so you inspire the team and make it loyal.
Try to understand the person you are talking to. You can't have just one approach that works for everyone at work.