https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/want-better-emotional-intelligence-try-practicing-these-7-easy-habits-in-2024.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-intl
It's a new year, and a new opportunity to work on the top thing readers tell me they want to develop: emotional intelligence.
Yes, emotional intelligence can be learned. In fact, that's the best definition as far as I am concerned: "the learned ability to leverage people's emotions (both yours and theirs) in order to make it more likely you'll achieve your ultimate goals."
Here are 7 simple, memorable habits that people with high emotional intelligence know they have to practice, so they'll eventually become automatic.
1. Practice conjuring gratitude.
Count your blessings? Of course. But people with high emotional intelligence take things a step further by looking at the things in their lives that maybe don't immediately inspire gratitude, and thinking through how they might find a way to be thankful anyway.
Perhaps the most poignant example I've heard: A reader once told me she had learned to be grateful for her mother's dementia. Why? It meant their "tumultuous" relationship was now in the past, and she was able to care for her without concern.
2. Practice being concise.
Talk about an example designed to give me anxiety, as I probably could have made this article more concise.
But taking the extra time to write (or say) something a bit shorter usually means you cut out the extraneous parts, that maybe you have a little less control over. The point is to avoid triggering an unintended emotional reaction.
3. Practice seeing things through other people's eyes.
This one is a great example of one of my favorite observations about emotional intelligence, which is that emotional intelligence isn't just about being nice to people, although that can be a side-benefit.
Example: if you can see things through other people's eyes, you're more like to "sell the benefit, not the feature," and thus convince them to do what you want them to do.
4. Practice building rhetorical escape routes.
The point here is to think about how you can structure encounters so that other people can save face, and agree with what you want them to do without having to admit mistakes.
Simple example: Instead of saying, 'I think you should do X,' you can soften your language to something like, 'I'm sure you've thought of this, but trying X might be an idea' or else, 'I make this mistake myself all the time, is there any chance you might try X?'
5. Practice the 4 second pause.
A psychologist in the Netherlands ran some experiments to calculate how long a pause has to last before it becomes awkward.
Result: 4 seconds. So, the idea here is that if you're willing to endure longer silences, other people are more likely to succumb to emotion and feel the need to fill them.
6. Practice your go-to phrases.
The biggest, most easily avoided error in emotional intelligence involves saying things off-the-cuff without thinking through what the unintended emotional messages might be.
The classic example is starting a team meeting on a Monday morning with, "How's everybody doing?" or similar language. Odds are at least one person in the group isn't actually doing that well, and yet everyone knows you don't really want to hear the answer -- not right now, anyway. I'm sure you can think of a better greeting.
7. Practice writing down your most important goals.
In the moment, it's easier for emotions to take over, and steer you clear of the things you truly want to achieve.
But if you've written down (for example): "My goal is to save enough for a down payment on a house," for example, it's a little less easy to get caught up in the excitement of something else you might spend money on.
8. Practice saying "no" to most things. (Or at least, "Thank you! Let me think about it.")
In fairness, this is related to the one about writing down goals. We're more likely to say "yes" immediately because of emotions, so defaulting to "no" is a defense.
But, going back to number 6, it probably makes sense to have a less-caustic answer than a simple "no." Perhaps try learning to say variations of something like:
"That's an interesting idea. Thanks! Let me think about it."
I could go on and on, but I think I'll practice as I preach in the second item above.
As I write in my free ebook, 9 Smart Habits of People With Very High Emotional Intelligence, increasing emotional intelligence is a lot more efficient if the habits you want to adopt are simple to practice.
Granted, I'm sure you would have thought of most of these anyway. But if they're helpful, maybe 2024 is the perfect time to start.
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