What a woman seeks in a man today? Is it just honesty, trust, love, fortune…? No

What a mother wants for her child today?
Only good education, smartness, high scores, health…? No

What a man wants from his wife?
Is it only beauty, cooking skills, compassion…? No!

What a child wants from mother?
Love, care, affection, protection…..that is it…? No

What does your boss want from you?
Hard work, dedication, efficiency, professional skills…?
Does that make you the best employee…? No

Gone are the days when these were the only qualities sought for!
Today every child is born intelligent, because they handle iPhones so well! (I am sure you must have heard this from almost all parents).
Every parent is a best parent coz they fulfil all the needs of the kids, Burger to Benz.
Every professional man or woman is successful and earning huge; if that is what success means!
Depressed, upset, unhappy with life, stressed, anxious, fearful … if that is what you are despite of name, fame, leisure & power, you are a huge failure!
“Feel like quitting life” is what you hear today from grown or lad!

The sole reason for all of the above is you lack emotional intelligence!
They told you about IQ, they talked about social intelligence, and they even ensure you learn and use artificial intelligence! No one talked of managing your emotions. Whenever you tried to show the emotions, they said it is a sign of weakness. So you swallowed & suppressed all your anger, sadness, guilt, fear, anxiety, and nervousness forever, till one day you felt like quitting! From Students committing suicide after 10th &12th standard results to Big shot owners of chains of business hubs are the examples!

What to do? What is this emotional intelligence exactly? How to acquire it?

Your general intelligence is your capacity to process learnt knowledge or information you already have in order to take a smart decision! Whereas emotional intelligence is your capacity to process your own emotions as well as understand others emotions to reach a win-win decision! As per psychology, emotional intelligence or EQ is valuable than IQ for successful life in true sense. Good news is EQ can be worked upon and improved unlike IQ which is hard to change.

Here are the ways by you can do improve upon your EQ!

Be Aware:
Knowing how you are feeling is important. You can manage emotions only if you know exactly what they are! Self-awareness needs understanding of what you are doing & how do you feel about what you do! Mostly we are on an auto-pilot mode, not only during watching TV or browsing phone but even when driving a car or riding a bike knowing not even when we stop at signal or take a turn! A self-time, solitude is a must. Take out 10 minutes in the morning to be with yourself, to know how you are feeling about what you are doing! Switching off phones and sitting with eyes closed for 10 minutes in the morning is good way to begin!

Channelize the emotions:
The word is channelizing, not controlling! The way you can’t control water from a hose pipe from plashing out, your emotions will flow out in one way or the other. Once you fall into the habit of knowing yourself by knowing your emotions, knowing how you feel, you can change how to react to it. Reaction! Yes that is what we can change. No emotion is good emotion or bad emotion, your reaction is good or bad! Joy is a good emotion only if it is not derived by hurting others. Anger can be good if it motivates to do something constructive!

Self-Motivation:
Action creates motivation, motivation creates action. Meaning by, start doing something and you will feel motivated. If you wait for the motivation, find one and then start, great! But chances are your motivation might not end longer. Then you need to find a new one! Keep rolling! Pay attention to the feelings and emotions before, during, and after doing whatever it is that you are doing. These feelings can be used to guide the further behaviour!

Empathize:
Being emotionally strong not just need handling your own emotions but recognize and respect how other feel too! That’s the key to healthy relations!
Sympathy is “I am sorry you are in pain!”
Empathy is “I fell how you feel.” “I feel your pain.”
Empathy is the mental capacity to experience the emotions, thoughts, feelings, or state of another person.

Orient Values
Emotional intelligence is worthless without values. It is important to teach values like honesty & respect to kids along with managing emotions. Otherwise a kid can become a lying, rude little brat but an emotionally intelligent one! You can be a successful emotionally intelligent boss, but it is useless if you are using it for manipulating your subordinates!

Knowing what you truly value is most important intelligence skill!

So, emotional intelligence is what we are and what we should be looking for in ourselves & all our relations –parents, children, siblings, spouse, or colleagues, to be truly successful!

Remember, Your EQ is more important than your IQ, and what is more important is your “I CAN!”

Dr. Sucheta Khaladkar
BHMS, PGDEMS
Homeopathic Physician, Child & Adolescent Counsellor, Peace Faculty at MITWPU