4. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Hello there!

Welcome to another edition of ’20 Lessons of my 20’s ( A segment that discusses various things I’ve learnt and I’m still learning as a young woman). Thank you always taking time to read these posts, I’m encouraged by your kind comments and shares! incase you missed the last edition, Read HERE. Today’s topic is “Emotional Intelligence” which for some reason I’ve been procrastinating, but the events of this week has prompted me to get this out there. so do read, share and enjoy.

As usual, All ‘lessons’ are solely a result of my personal experiences, but I do hope they are valuable and worth sharing to someone else. Do have an open mind whilst reading….

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I personally feel Nigerians have quite an aggressive nature, not all but a large population. Even in the most simple scenarios like queues, traffic, or just gatherings, the forceful and imposing behavior just shows. We often fail to acknowledge the feelings of others and majorly have the “things must go my way” mentality.  When whereas we should sometimes observe, evaluate, understand and adjust.
I did a brief survey and realised that 4 out of 5 people do not know what Emotional intelligence(E.I) is. I first heard this phrase a while back and due to my inquisitive nature I went ahead to do research on it.
So simply put, E.I is “effectively managing your emotions and that of others” . Meaning you are well aware of the way you feel towards things/people and considerate of how others feel. Hence, your actions and decisions follow suit.

“Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer defined emotional intelligence as, “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (1990)

That is, you’re less aggressive, imposing, overbearing, overly sensitive and self-seeking.

Emotional intelligence allows you to manage people and also horn your leadership skills. It also gives you mental balance. You don’t get upset easily , you create room for people’s excesses, you have more control over your emotions and a more peaceful outlook to life.

There are many components to Emotional intelligence, like respect for the choices of Others, showing compassion, sense of humour when required, originality, applying intuition and creative reasoning. In essence, E.I promotes self-regulation i.e. the ability to control and redirect disruptive impulses and moods. This allows us to suspend judgement, and think before any action.

Further more, Emotional intelligence is largely linked with empathy, allowing you to treat and relate with people according to their emotional reactions. For example, my mum is quite sentimental, so being logical with her would never work. it would only get me infuriated and impatient. So now I’m learning to pad my opinions to her, especially when I feel strongly about an issue. Being abrupt and blunt may seem imposing and overbearing to her, so I need to soften my pitch and choice of words to attain a favorable response. Whereas I on the other hand despise patronage, I’d rather you say it as it is no matter how unpleasant. So any one relating with me needs to understand that to get desired results.

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One thing Emotional intelligence also teaches you is that not everyone can be emotionally intelligent, but as I tweeted the other day, this is when the fruits of the spirit comes in. “Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and my personal favourite “self-Control”.

I’d like to consider the faith-based perspective of Emotional intelligence as basically having the fruits of the spirit. Having this makes you more pleasant, understanding, and more relatable, which is when you can foster better and positive relationships with people.

There are several articles and teachings on E.I and it would be great if we read up on it to develop our reasoning quotient, Here’s a fantastic one I found for leaders: E.I FOR LEADERS

Do have a great day ahead!

16 Lessons to go. I hope to one day publish these writings into a book/compilation, but until then it’s all for you my blog readers!

Got Questions, requests or suggestions? Kindly leave a comment below, I’d love to hear from you

xoxo

Tosin