Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash 

My weekly morning routine is usually pretty standard, hair, shower, dress then make up.  As simple as it sounds, it takes me roughly an hour to get through the routine. One specific morning it took me a lot longer to get myself together.  While combing my hair back into a bun (my signature do) I found my first official grey strand of hair. I stared at it for 5 minutes, then I began talking to it, “why are you here” I asked. “Look, I’m not ready, you can stay but tell your friends to not show up because this is not a party”. I frantically sent out a group message to my sister circle to announce the distress about my newly found friend, but the replies were clear and unanimous - relax they all said, grey hair symbolizes wisdom. But what is wisdom? and did it come with the hair or was the hair the reward for being wise?

A few weeks prior, my business management professor covered the topic of emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence called EI or EQ for short can be described as a person’s ability to be aware of their own emotions, and with this knowledge has the ability to control their emotions as well as the emotions of others, I was intrigued. About a year ago I remember having a challenging experience at work in which someone took me to the side and told me, “its ok to be mad but you don’t have to show them that you are mad”. That bit of advice was the first step towards learning about EI and I had no idea the message would come full circle a year later.

Here are a few actions that will help you to master your EI

1. Evaluate your feelings

   What is your current mood? why are you feeling that way? Do you have the ability to adjust your feelings? Do you know your emotional strengths and weaknesses? These questions are extremely important to become more emotionally aware. If you learn how to identify your feelings, you can learn to control them.

2. Demonstrate empathy

   I think it’s safe to say that if you are unable to understand your own emotions, it will be almost impossible for you to understand the emotions of others. Empathy is the ability to understand how other people are feeling and the ability to use this connection to put yourself in their position to understand their point of view.

3. Develop the ability to identify emotional manipulation

   This is a tricky one, since emotional manipulation can be very subtle. This may occur in the form of peer pressure or even “constructive criticism”. The important thing to do is ask yourself  who and why. Who is addressing you? and why are they addressing you.  Do they have anything to gain by influencing you? Are they having a bad day, a bad week or a bad life? Obviously you will not address everyone in this manner but if you listen to your gut, you will know when to start evaluating.

4. Inspire yourself and others

   It is usually hard to stay motivated in everyday life. Someone who understands EI knows how to tap into that power reserve and use it to break through stagnation. If you are self-aware, then you know the things that motivate you, whether its a video, song, book or a specific person. Once you have created this wave of encouragement for yourself, it will be easy for people to be inspired by you.

5. Improve your social skills

   If you find it hard, or have a limit to how social you can be EI can help you to improve your social skills. People with good social skills are approachable and great team players.

What will you gain from mastering your EI?

1. You will feel more balanced in your everyday life.

2. Better relationships with friends, spouses and family.

3. You will be more composed at work.

4. People will view you in a positive manner.

5. You will make more rational decisions.

6. Your leadership skills and capabilities will be off the chain :)

Below you can find great reading material from Amazon if you need more information on improving your EI.