What are the signs that you need to improve your emotional intelligence for better self-care?

I worked on my EQ by understanding the root causes that affect it: 1. Upbringing and parenting styles: Children whose parents have lower EQ might struggle to manage their own emotions since they have less opportunity to learn healthy coping skills. 2. Mental health conditions: If you have trouble understanding how other people feel, you could begin to find interactions stressful and fear saying something that gets people mad at you. 3.Alexithymia: People with alexithymia might also have a harder time empathizing with others. They may prioritize logic and concrete facts over feeling-based thinking. 4. Genetics: I recently read that genetics account for 30-50% of the differences in people’s EQ.

Born a person with disabilities, I learned self-awareness really young. I need it in order to manage the myriad of complex emotions that can crash over me when I am unprepared. Gradually, as I got older, I started to understand how things triggered me, became interested in knowing myself with personality tests like Enneagram, and thereafter proactively self-managed my emotions and actions with what I learned. All these are not possible if I live in my own bubble, throwing fits and tantrums without knowing why. This is a sure recipe for self-destruction and will definitely push valuable people who were willing to mentor or teach me away. A Chinese proverb says: "知己知彼，百战百胜," know thyself, know others, and you will win every battle.

Feedback is key in raising self awareness. Seek feedback do not wait for it, from your manager, peers, friends you trust and coworkers. Johari Window is very helpful in collecting feedback in a structured positive/professional way Also, reflecting is SO key, ask yourself always, why did i feel this way in this situation? Why did i react this way? Why does person irritates me? How do they make me feel and why? Why this person/situation trigger this negative response or feeling? How can I react differently next time? Awareness is Power to understand and control your own emotions and behaviors

Self-awareness is the first step in any self-improvement journey. To improve your emotional intelligence through self-awareness, follow these 3 steps: Step 1. Observation and recording: make note of your thoughts, emotions, and actions in challenging situations. What happened? What triggered it? What were the consequences? Step 2. Analyze and plan: think about what you could change both internally and externally. What are things to avoid? How you could react differently? You will benefit from seeking feedback from other people and coaches to help with this step. Step 3. Act and reflect: revisit the situations where you acted differently and if you achieved the desired results. Rinse and repeat!

One of the most obvious signs that an improvement in emotional intelligence is required is the habit of jumping to assumption and conspiracy theories. Often, we fill in the gaps between what we know and what we don’t know…. creating a false possibility of reality or a confabulation of what is true.

It was the suffering of my own professional burnout that led me toward improving my self-awareness skills. I then began learning about mindfulness-based skills and instead of merely "doing them" as interventions for my therapy patients, I "lived them" in my own daily life via consistent practice. This diligent practice grew my motivation for change as well as my awareness of my blind spots and unskillful mental, emotional and behavioral habits getting in the way of connecting, creating, and effectively intervening in my work.

"Getting carried away by emotions" is another red flag to watch out for while regulating emotions. We should not confuse feeling overwhelmed as exhibiting emotional intelligence. The tendency to allow emotion to overtake you is as common with positive ones as with the negative ones. A simple example to explain this is when we tend to display empathy. It may happen many a times in our attempt to understand and help others, we allow ourselves to be overtaken by the emotions of the other personal and lose sight of rationality.

Meditation helps a lot in understanding and regulating emotions because it allows you to pause, focus to identify exactly how you feel, relax and tone down and in a lot of situations you would actually feel better about the situation or person Knowing how to manage yourself when you’re stressed or anxious is key to meditation really helps

Emotion regulation is far more than learning to "calm down" when asked to -- how often does that work?! It begins by learning about the triggers / cues to your intense, unpleasant emotions and learning to abide them (via mindfulness practice in my experience) without knee-jerk, habitual reacting in ways that create ongoing collateral damage in relationships and work outcomes. With the "space" that "slowing" from immediate reaction creates, you can begin to insert new, more likely skillful behaviors that connect with others, foster collaboration, ect.

Being an extrovert doesn’t mean you know how to communicate Effectively communicating means you know how to speak but also receive- dialogue is a 2 way process Active listening means you listen to understand and absorb not to reply or defend And in a lot of times we shy away from asking the person what they mean with their words, don’t! Confirm your understanding by asking follow up questions

One unique aspect to communication skills (and why they often are "poor" for folks), is that we aren't typically taught growing up that -- in a given moment of interaction between people -- each person is experiencing an "undeniable truth" -- present moment bodily sensory experience, emotion and the fact of thinking ... You may not agree with the CONTENT of their thoughts, but you can't deny the fact that they are happening. If we learn to acknowledge each other's undeniable truth experience, we touch common humanity in a given moment. We set the stage for communication to be something other than "poor." It sounds like this: "I'm having this experience in my mind and body right now AND I'm curious what's happening for you."

Post Covid19 and the lock down, working totally from home lots of people lost their ability to socialize It is key to seek collaborations, interactions and to practice socializing so that you learn and develop. It is an acquired skill. Even if you are an introvert, you can still socialize to a limit

Emotional balance is a continuous process. Humans grow with situational intelligence. How we respond in a situation matters a lot than just giving a reaction. We need continuous self checks in this aspect.

Base Your Emotional Balance on The Foundation of “The Expectation Equation” Emotional unbalance occurs when expectations don’t match reality. When you don’t question reality, you remain unmoved by turbulence — insult, unsolicited advice, provocations, arguments, etc. The reason for this stability is the lack of wasteful thoughts. For example, if someone tailgates/honks you on the highway, assume they have an emergency. And make way for them. This will save you unnecessary stress and agitation. You can also practice some deep breathing exercises like 4-7-8 or meditation to help you stay calm in those moments of stress.

Emotional Intelligence is a learnable set of skills. EQ is different from IQ in that we have some control over it... So even if you recognize yourself in some (or all) of the signs of needing to develop more enhanced Emotional Intelligence, know that you *can*, and get support!