Can Emotional Intelligence Improve Your Relationships?

Ana-Maria Georgieva

3 years ago

Does building stronger emotional intelligence help with the quality of our professional or intimate relationships?

Research shows that emotional intelligence (EI) enables us to make effective decisions. Cornell University researchers found that individuals with higher EI picked up better on critical bodily signals and used that information to avoid risky decisions or allow their emotions to cloud their judgement while – at the same time – employing stronger empathy.

Ready to explore how emotional intelligence (EQ) helps you to improve your communication skills and by improving your communication skills, improve your relationships?

First, to give you some background, the term ‘Emotional Intelligence’, first coined by psychologists Mayer and Salovey (1990), refers to one’s capacity to perceive, process, and regulate emotional information accurately and effectively, both within oneself and in others and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions and to influence those of others.

How to know if you have innate emotional intelligence?

Here are a few strong indicators:

You are able to control your impulsiveness and label your emotions
You can maintain patience and self-control in stressful situations
You can replace judgement with curiosity, and invest the effort to separate your emotions from the problem
You can empathize with others without absorbing their emotions or compromising your boundaries to please others
You can resist the urge to interrupt others or listen to them passively
You can be present with others without getting distracted with your own thoughts/the urge to share your own opinion
You can integrate different perspectives and prevent and solve conflicts before they arise
You are skilled at not overwhelming your team with unnecessary projects/tasks
You know how to maintain laser focus without getting overwhelmed
You are capable of providing efficient and strategic solutions to basic problems
You are aware of your innate bias and practice active listening while communicating with others
You can seek and receive feedback without getting defensive or doubting your skills
You are consistently working on yourself to avoid hitting an intellectual plateau

So what to do next if you want to improve your EQ?

Keep browsing through my free articles and if you still need help improving your mindset so that you can improve the quality of your relationships – I am here to offer expert advice.

Here is what a former client of mine has to say:

“Being in the high-tech community for 25 years has its tow. The culture is that you are solving hard challenges in competition with the smartest people around the world. It is so easy to start feeling “not enough” or only as good enough as the latest problem you were able to solve. At the same time, relationships take a backstage and begin to suffer. It becomes harder and harder to genuinely connect with people and enjoy life. This is where Ana-Maria’s classes become life-changing. She is very intuitive, quickly gets to the root of the issues, explains them to the mind, engages your heart, and gently guides you back to feeling alive. I feel so fortunate for her to be my life coach and to be able to participate in her seminars. Every high-tech worker needs something like this!“

You can stream my free training here.

In a summary,

Unless we learn how to balance our mental work (which is more masculine in nature) with our emotional bandwidth (which is more feminine in its qualities), we risk suppressing the part of our brain responsible for empathy to entrophy and even shut down with time – negatively impacting only your leadership skills but also your friendships and romantic relationships!