Learning about Emotional Intelligence

Every individual is destined to live different situations in his life, but even if we place different people before the same event, the way to respond can be unequal.

Sometimes, it surprises us when we observe that a person is in difficult circumstances, that we say to ourselves "How can you stand it, how is it so strong, or controlled", we find ourselves with people who know how to get along, know themselves and know their limitations, based on this they know what their best areas are, and they have the ability to feel motivated.

And it is that this does not happen by magic, the control of emotions, the ability to act and know ourselves better can be learned and developed and in fact, has a name. It's called emotional intelligence.

But of course, before talking about emotional intelligence we must define intelligence

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To maintain order, let's see, in the definition of the authors, what intelligence is

Piaget (1972): intelligence is a generic term that indicates the higher forms of organization or balance of the cognitive structure that are used for adaptation to the physical and social environment.

It is said that intelligence is the ability to adapt, an individual act to adapt to different circumstances has great possibilities to survive, and to be able to continue evolving. Very good, but this as a base, beyond there are different studies where we talk about intelligences and within them we find the aforementioned "emotional intelligence"

Sometimes we assume that an intelligent person is one who knows how to solve mathematical problems and in reality these language abilities, or abstract include "Intellectual Quotient", this alone is not intelligence. Because we can not assume that an intellectual capacity is synonymous with good performance in the social sphere.

Emotional Intelligence

This dimension responds to another way of understanding intelligence beyond cognitive aspects, such as memory and the ability to solve problems. We speak first of all of our capacity to effectively direct ourselves and others, to connect with our emotions, to manage them, to motivate ourselves, to stop impulses, to overcome frustrations .translated from Spanish Source

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The psychologist Goleman is the greatest exponent of emotional intelligence and I will take his studies into account for the points to be dealt with in this publication.

Goleman points out that there are components that are the pillars of emotional intelligence and they are:

• Self-knowledge: Basically, this is about recognizing ourselves, sometimes we experience emotions but we do not have the capacity to give it a name. As we recognize what we are feeling we can make decisions, for example when a person can identify what they feel they can act with awareness and not live the uncertainty of not finding themselves.

Knowing ourselves, knowing what our weaknesses and strengths represent a point in favor if we want to work to improve, because we could not take actions to improve a defect that we do not know exists in us.

• Self-control: People need self-control (also known as self-regulation), is the ability of an individual to not get carried away by emotion.

Imagine that you are in your vehicle and you commit an infraction but you do it because you really carry an emergency and it stops you for the police. You maybe know that you are acting incorrectly, however at that moment you are upset, and feel like hitting the official. Would you do it? A person without control would of course do so even if this leads to greater consequences.

The inability to self-regulate exposes the subject to commit acts but then regrets them, it does not matter if the levels are high or low, the person who does not have self-control and controls their emotion will be able to act according to the emotion of the moment, losing the ability to visualize future scenarios. The person who possesses this capacity will be able to respond accordingly and will be able to control the inconvenience of the moment.

• Self motivation: It consists of the ability to motivate you, at some point we have met people who achieve many things in life, and if we analyze the behavior of these people we could come to the conclusion that they have self-motivation, these people do not necessarily expect external approval, but they only need to get the positive of each opportunity and stay focused on the goals set. Loaded with an impeccable security, they have the required capacity to contribute what it takes to complete the tasks and overcome the obstacles that are proposed. These people usually have a self-control and that is why they can control negative emotions, neutralize them and soften them.

• Recognition of the emotions of others: This is summarized in empathy, represented in the ability to understand the emotions of others is the closest to the expression "put in the shoes of the other", this integrates many things, not identify with the person we have around, is although you do not know their experiences to be able to understand as much as possible their emotions, and to have the capacity to address you with respect and focused on their needs. It is the component par excellence of the altruistic people, the giving to whom he needs, just what he needs.

It is important to point out that in order to be empathic it is not necessary to suffer the same, if we are faced with a person who is crying you do not necessarily have to cry with him, it is to allow empathy to be a support for your crying because you understand his situation. It is not about saying "I understand you, I know what you feel", but your body has never felt that, and in that moment you have not come to connect. When we are empathic we develop the capacity to understand from your position everything that the other experiences.

• Social skills : Social skills include many areas, but in this case reference is made to the positive capacity that a person possesses for their interpersonal relationships, not limited to the verbal level, goes beyond. To relate, we need to express ourselves and the forms of expression are very broad.