Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is a person's ability to perceive their own emotions, and the emotions of others, and how well they are able to manage these emotions in a productive and healthy manner. Emotional Intelligence plays an important role in our life and influences the successes we have in both relationships and careers. When the mind is at peace, the body is able to function at its best and the risk of heart conditions, high blood pressure, and other stress related conditions is much less.

You can use these simple steps to help you improve your emotional health in a more productive way.

Practice observing your emotions and how you feel. In the stress of everyday life, we often lose touch with our emotions and act unconsciously. When acting out of impulse, we miss out on the information that our emotions contain. Paying attention to your feelings, helps you learn how to trust your emotions and become more skilled at managing them.
Pay attention to your behaviour. Behaviour is usually the direct result of your emotions; therefore, observing your emotions goes right along with observing your behaviour. Notice your behaviour in response to everyday happenings. Do certain situations impact your communication with other, or your productivity as a whole?
Take responsibility for your feelings and behaviour. The emotions and actions that you feel and perform come from you. Your reactions to a situation are your responsibility.
Respond instead of react. There's a slight difference between responding and reacting, but an important one just the same. Your immediate reactions are usually an unconscious process caused by an emotional trigger, which causes you to behave in a way that relieves/vents your emotions. Responding is taking a step back in your mind for a moment, noticing how you feel, and deciding on how you want to behave.
Empathize yourself and others. Empathy is all about understanding why someone feels and acts the way they do, and being able to communicate it.
Do your best to create and maintain a positive environment. Your environment plays a very big role in your emotional health. Notice the environments where you feel the most peaceful and try to imitate that atmosphere in your daily surroundings.

Maintaining a healthy level of emotional intelligence is, in some ways, a lifelong pursuit. At no point will a person have mastered perfection, but as you continue making an effort to follow these steps you will reap the benefits in your life.