34 Best Ways to Make Emotional Intelligence Work for You: A Guide to Feeling Better and Making Better Choices

1. What Keeps Me up at Night?

Why this question first? Because without a top of mind question, how do you know where to begin? In order to create direction, a person needs to honestly know where they are in the present moment.

So often we look for solutions in the future without paying attention to the present. This can lead to anxiety, annoyance, and depression because it’s continuously in the future. It’s okay to look ahead at the big picture only for comparison and contrast.

When you honestly think about what keeps you up at night your mind is communicating with you about a concern you may not have an immediate solution for. So you tend to ruminate over and over thinking how am I going to handle this or that?

We get stuck in the how and lose sight of what, when, where and who. These ruminating thoughts left unchecked and unhandled will cause you to dive deeper in your head. It’s a way of getting lost inside your mind bouncing from one thought and feeling to the next.

Imagine you’re in a dream and you have total control of it and is so vivid that it appears real. Then you realize that you’re in another dream with a different scenario and outcomes. As this dream begins to unfold you realize you are in another dream. Now your mind is focused its attention on that dream and scenario.

While in this dream a new outcome and scenario are created and you begin to put your attention, energy and focus on this current dream. Finally, while in the current dream you realize that there are three other dreams that are happening at the same time.

You’ve gone into 4 levels of dreaming each one having there own story and outcomes. As soon as you realize this you begin to end each dream in sequence from 4, 3, 2,1 and wake-up!

Although it all appeared to be real while you were asleep, it alarmed you, realizing that you were in four dreams. When you woke up from the second dream you realized you were in another dream and then woke up for real! You sat up on your bed and began to remember parts of your dream.

You noticed that each dream was related to the next dream and so on and discovered you were stuck in thought. When you’re stuck in thought it is common to pull in similar thoughts related to the original thought.

It’s important to understand when something is keeping you up a night that it is acknowledged and validated by short-circuiting the thought with something like, “I know and hear you but I can’t solve it right now.” Repeat as often as necessary so you can go to sleep, in order to help you sleep.

2. Does My Emotional Intelligence Keep Me up at Night?

First, we began with thoughts and now we follow up with our emotional intelligence. Emotional Intelligence is defined by how your thoughts and feelings interact with each other. Essentially, they are one of the same a feeling is a reflection on how we’re thinking.

It’s a mirror or a window into our thoughts. Ei gives our thought energy and contrast on what our thoughts are. E-MOTION is putting our thoughts and feelings in motion or action.

“E” equals Energy and “Motion” equals movement which is expressed through behavior especially facial expression, body language, words, articulation of words, vocal cords, hand gestures, jaw, mandible, lips, tongue, cheeks, eyes, and facial skin. Each letter makes a word, each word makes a sentence, each sentence makes a complete thought having a subject, noun, adjective, verb and includes any symbol or number expressed.

When EI keeps you up at night it means that your thought and feeling do not agree. In other words, you cannot have a positive thought and a negative feeling this is a mismatch. The thought and feeling are out of the agreement and creates internal conflict or deadlock.

Opposite forces are being employed by sending a message that something isn’t in harmony. For example, “I’m thinking positive right not, but I’m feeling annoyed.” If you do simple addition a positive (+) plus a negative (-) equals (=) negative (-).

So how do you get the thought and feeling to agree? The thought is in the future and the feeling is in the moment. The thought is what you want to have and feeling is what you feel in the moment. What thought would you assign the feeling of being annoyed? “I’m annoyed right now because I lost my keys.”  You will have a positive thought and feeling when you find your keys.

Too often we ignore what we’re feeling in the moment because we are distracted by the future. Feel what you feel in the moment without judgment of right or wrong…and know that it’s, just IS. When thought and feeling are in agreement you will be in harmony and in a better state of mind.

Better state of mind leads to making better choices, which lead to better outcomes and increased Emotional Intelligence, and emotional intelligence leads to a better state of mind, better choices, and outcomes.

3. Why Is Developing Emotional Intelligence Skills Important?

As mentioned above when thought and feeling are not in agreement you have disharmony which leads to least effective thinking and feeling, least effective outcomes and least effective emotional intelligence. When you learn to unite thought and feeling that agree with each other you are in Ei-Harmony.

Ei skills create harmony and a beautiful song is created! Your song! We have as many thoughts as feelings. When you learn to navigate your feelings you are essentially navigating your thoughts too. Ei allows you to be in balance with yourself which means greater happiness. When your Ei is in tune your life seems to be effortless because of your current perspective and light demeanor.

Know that emotional energy can be quantified with positive (+) and negative (-) or polar opposites. Because every feeling you have has a purpose and energy unit. Look at negative only as a contrast not as good or bad, because when you look at things in black or white or all or nothing or overgeneralizing, you are thinking and feeling in absolutes.

It’s saying that All Italians are in the mafia, All Asian people know Kung Fu, All trees are the same, All men are the same, All women are the same, etc. Also, be careful of these words when used out of context; they, every, any, all, not, don’t and no.

Ei keeps thoughts and feelings in check and in balance. Learn to know thyself, your thoughts and feelings first and you will know others. Use Ei skills to improve health, wealth, love and fulfillment.

4. What Are Feelings?

Feelings are a reflection on how we think in other words, “thoughts.” Feelings give thoughts energy and allow us to compare and contrast how we’re thinking. They guide us, and our thoughts to make optimal decisions and choices. Feelings come in a variety of colors to show their energy levels from green to orange, to pink, to red, to blue and to purple.

There are opposite feelings (+) Love, Gratitude, Joy, and (-) such as Boredom, Annoyance and Blame to name a few. For instance, what is Love’s opposite? Fear! What about Gratitude? Depression! What about Joy? Guilt! You may be thinking how is this possible? How can fear be the opposite of love or vice versa? The more you think about the more you will see. Each opposite keeps the other in check. Although Love/Fear are opposites they are intrinsically connected.

Can you feel love and fear at the same time? A positive and negative cannot live in the same space and time. You either feel love or fear. For example, “I’m afraid of this monstrous roller coaster, but I love the thrill of speed.”

Fear:  “I’m afraid of this monstrous roller coaster.” ;

Love: “but I love the thrill of SPEED-speed is what you really love.”

You have two separate thoughts and feelings in one sentence separated by a comma.

When you grasp the idea that feelings have a true purpose your understanding about Emotional Intelligence will increase; emotional intelligence (EI), feelings and thoughts are interconnected and work in unison. When one is faulty to a degree the other two components falter to the same degree. The opposite is true when thoughts go up so do feelings and EI.

5. What Are Emotions?

Emotions are thought and feeling in action. When you have a thought you also have a feeling at the same time and expressed through emotions. Emotions are behavioral or shown through some physical means of actions. As mentioned above “E” is for Energy and “Motion” stands for action or physical movement.

Emotions express what we are thinking and feeling using emotional intelligence. So when you communicate using your letters, words, sentence, period, jaw, mandible, tongue, vocal cords, cheeks, eyes, eyebrows, facial muscles, forehead muscles, and nose; you are expressing emotions.

Also, you use body language through moving your hands, arms, legs, neck, that special finger, feet, elbows, wrists, hips, abs, glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, ankles, and toes. As you can see these are physical movements. Emotions animate and bring to life how we think and feel. As we learned emotions are not feelings, they are the effect of feelings. Thoughts and feelings are cause and emotions are the effect.

Why is it important to express your emotions? It helps people know what you’re thinking at the moment. Emotion adds an element of authenticity and sincerity and it aligns, validates and acknowledges your thought and feeling. This, in turn, creates harmony with thought, feeling and emotion increasing your emotional intelligence.

When your thoughts, feelings, and emotion are in agreement you are considered to be in a state of genuineness and authenticity. It takes practice and patience to reach this state and is worth learning because you will feel better, get better and be happier. Neuroscientists believes that emotion is part of our ancient fight or flight genetics.

For instance, the Amygdala which is a gland located at the bottom part of the brain controls our fight or flight response; a large nerve called Vagus nerve travels slightly down the spinal cord and then branches to the left through the heart and then to the plexes (Lungs, Liver, Gallbladder, Stomach, Spleen, Pancreas, Small and Large Intestines).

The Amygdala measures levels of threat using the fear feeling. When your threat alarm sounds an electrical signal is sent from the Amygdala via the Vagus Nerve through the Heart (Increase pulse rate and blood pressure, then to Lungs (Breathing is excited) then to Liver, Gallbladder, Stomach (Butterfly Effect), Spleen, Pancreas (Increased blood sugar), Small and Large Intestines (Bowels becomes active). Now, the decision is to either fight or flee? Which do you do? Either fight or flee will create different mental and physical responses.

6. What Are Emotional Intelligence Skills?

According to Dr. Goleman (1997), core key emotional skills are self-confidence, optimistic persistence (positive thinking), recovering quickly from upsets and easy-going nature; external core values such as self-awareness, managing feelings, delay gratification, and handling stress and anxiety feed into the core values as well.

Let’s take the core skills, for instance, what does self-confidence mean and why is it important? It’s a person’s self-determination that they will complete some task at hand either completing a current project, task or target. Essentially if the person makes up their mind to complete something nothing will stop them from doing it! What about optimistic persistence? This takes self-confidence to a new level by putting self-confidence into motion with a plan that has targets, time frame, result and feedback elements.

What does recovering quickly have to do with emotional intelligence skills? This one is extremely important because it’s directly tied to your thinking and feeling and high emotions. For instance, let’s take two people Lucy and Camilla. Lucy’s Emotional Intelligence Feeling is relatively low and usually hovers around blame and resentment.

The EiF is the feeling range people tend to do the majority of thinking, feeling and acting and in Lucy’s case Blame and Resentment. I have personally been around people with these feelings and I can tell you it’s not pleasant because it’s everyone else’s fault and the person begins going down the road of resentment. Camilla, on the other hand, lives in the high emotions side usually Hopeful and Joyful Expectation.

She tends to recover faster from setbacks, has an easy-going demeanor and is relatively persistent in pursuing her targets. There’s not a right or wrong or bad or good thing happening here. The only difference is the thinking, feeling, actions, result, and feedback.

If Lucy decided to live in the high emotions then she would use a combination of self-help, life coaching, counseling, therapy, and mindfulness methodologies to help her increase her emotional intelligence into the high emotion range.

7. What Is High Emotional Intelligence?

This is the feeling range to live in every day that keeps you hopeful and happy regardless of what’s happening around you. However, just because the feeling range is hopeful and happy the person does feel the lower feelings from time to time based on their current circumstance.

The key to understanding this is, what is your daily average feeling? Most people do not know what their average daily feeling is. Your average daily feeling controls your life!

I color classify high emotions as green because green is found mostly in nature, it’s pleasant to look at, is one of the primary colors and in America, we know Green means go because of traffic signals. When you look at a shade of green how do you feel? What green is your favorite color? For me, I look at green as the color of life. When living things are green they are alive and growing just like us.

When you live in green feelings, life tends to be easy, enjoyable, pleasurable, productive, loveable and friendlier. Why is it easier living in green? Because when you have green thinking/feeling your awareness and clarity is much higher and advanced. Which leads to making better choices, better results and a better life.

A better life for me means my health is good, my wealth is good, my love is good and my fulfillment is good! If I was to score my health, wealth, love and fulfillment from 1-5 my average score for all four areas would be a 3.8 out of five.

As you can see it’s not a perfect score because I personally do not live in the low emotions and I’m not looking to live a perfect life, just a happy one! Besides if you score a 5 in every area that means you are perfect, and there’s only one direction you can go…down! I would rather know I can either go up or down if I choose to do so. Because I’m Emotionally Intelligent and so are you!

8. What Is Low Emotional Intelligence?

This is the feeling range that tends to give you all the things you Don’t want in your life! Also, These are feelings like boredom, anger, resentment, hate to name a few. As a human being, we’ve felt these feelings at one time or another in our lives. These feelings are not good or bad but give us contrast, equilibrium, and balance to our high emotions.

Remember feeling them is okay as long as you do not live in them or become them! When you’re stuck in the “Red” feelings they can cause much pain in your life. Red feelings can be destructive if left unacknowledged, unvalidated and unchecked.

Low emotional intelligence is the direct opposite of high emotional intelligence and the only thing that separates you from one or the other is your thinking and feeling.

The core values for low emotional intelligence are little to no self-confidence, little to no optimistic persistence, little to no recovering quickly from upsets and little to no easy-going nature; external core values such as little self-awareness, little to no managing feelings, little to no delaying gratification and little to not handling stress and anxiety.

As you can see, you can live in high emotions or low emotions but not both at the same time. However, you can feel both sides, but which side you live in everyday determines what your life looks like right now. Low emotions keep you stuck in the past, makes you more introverted and keeps you more in your head!

It’s the “Paralysis By Analysis.” In other words, it is the “hows.”

“How do I do that?” “How do I do this?” “How do I do that?” “How do I do this?” “How do I do that?” “I should do…”, “How do I do that?” “I should do…”, “How do I do that?” “I should do…”, “How do I do that?” “I should do…”, “How do I do that?” “I should do…fill in the blank!”

All this happened in your head and not in the physical world…which means no action, no result, and no feedback!

9. What Are High Emotional Intelligence Feelings?

High Ei feelings are Love, Gratitude, Joy, Passion, Happiness, Excitement, Joyful Expectation, Hope, Satisfaction, and Calm. The high emotions are in descending order beginning from Love and ending with Calm.

• Love. It is the greatest of all feelings because it incompases all the green feelings. The feelings below love are dilutions of love in various degrees. Love supplies us a warm personal attachment or deep affection as for a parent, child, pet or friend.
• Gratitude. It is Love’s partner and puts love into motion it gives love the energy and life. It gives us the quality or feeling of being thankful and grateful.
• Joy. It lets us feel great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.
• Passion. We feel a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm or desire for anything.
• Happiness. Brings us good fortune, pleasure, and contentment.
• Excitement. Something that excites us by moving ourselves in an uncontrolled way as in winning one million dollars!
• Joyful Expectation. We feel full of joy as a person or one’s heart, glad or delighted.
• Hope. It is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.
• Satisfaction. It is the confident acceptance of something as satisfactory, dependable or true.
• Calm. It is the neutral zone of green feelings. It keeps us free from excitement or passion, it’s the gatekeeper between high feelings and low feelings.

So when you live in the high feelings your thinking, actions, and results are also high…which means you are getting what you want out of life. Look through these high feelings and see which one you live in every day. Match this feeling based on what your life looks like right now.

If your life matches how you feel, then your thought and feeling match. If not, then be honest with yourself and reassign a different feeling.

10. What Are Low Emotional Intelligence Feelings?

Low Ei feelings continue the descending order from calm to Boredom, Annoyance, Worry, Blame, Anger, Hate, Resentment, Guilt, Depression and Fear.

• Boredom. It is to be weary by dullness, tedious repetition and unwelcome attention. If you sit here too long you will drop down to Annoyance.
• Annoyance. It is a person or thing that disturbs or bothers another. Sit here too long and you end up in worry.
• Worry. To torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret. Sit here too long and you will feel Blame.
• Blame. To place the responsibility for a fault, error, etc. on something or someone. Stay here too long and you will feel yourself slip into Anger.
• Anger. It is a strong feeling of displeasure and hostility aroused by a wrong. Sit here too long you will feel Hate.
• Hate. To feel intense dislike or extreme aversion or hostility. Woah! Feel this too long and you will drop down to Resentment.
• Resentment. It is the feeling of displeasure or mad at some act, remark, person, etc. regarded as causing injury or insult. Feel Resentment to long and it will lead you to Guilt.
• Guilt. It is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc. whether real or imagined. Sit here too long it will lead to the dark side, Depression.
• Depression. It is a condition of general emotional Dejection and Withdrawal; Sadness Greater and more Prolonged than warranted by any objective reason. While in Depression it feels like the world is sitting on your shoulders. Sit in the DARK for too long and Fear will take over.
• Fear. It is a distressing feeling aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc. whether the threat is real or imagined. F.E.A.R. Stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.

As you read the last few low Ei feelings, you may have felt these low feelings just now, know it is normal to do so. The low Ei feelings probably provoked many conflicting feelings with some of them needing acknowledgment and validation.

If you did feel these feelings and they are still with you, maybe it’s time to handle some of these more powerful low Ei feelings before they get out of hand.

11. What Are The 20 Common Emotional Intelligence Feelings?

In descending order they are:

High EiF Scale

• +Love
• +Gratitude
• +Joy
• +Passion
• +Happiness
• +Excitement
• +Joyful Expectation
• +Hope
• +Satisfaction
• +Calm

Low EIF Scale

• -Boredom
• -Annoyance
• -Worry
• -Blame
• -Anger
• -Hate
• -Resentment
• -Guilt
• -Depression
• -Fear

High and Low Emotional Intelligence feelings are important because they make up the core feelings of your Emotional Intelligence. How you move up and down on this scale will determine the level of your Ei. Know that these feelings are neither right or wrong good or bad…they just are!

Your ability to feel the feeling at the moment is to feel it without suppressing the momentary feeling because it’s your mind giving you feedback on how you’re thinking at the moment.

Remember, feelings are a reflection of how you’re thinking. For instance, if you feel Gratitude show it! If you Angry express it using your words without causing physical or mental injury! If you’re Depressed feel it first then express by thinking of the opposite twice.

For example, “I feel depressed because nobody loves me.” to “If that were true why do I have friends?” and “I like my coworkers.”

What you just did was to short circuit or redirect a depression thought and feeling. It takes two positive (+) statements to cancel one negative (-) statement. Because the deeper you go down the scale the higher the negative energy gets.

Look at the previous statements: “I feel depressed because nobody loves me. Negative (-);  “If that were true why do I have friends?” Positive (+) and “I like my coworkers.” Positive (+). Actually, it’s a good idea to form the habit of 2:1 ratio, two positive statements for each negative statement. Each time you do this you increase your Emotional Intelligence, and helps you move more freely up and down the EiF Scale.

12. What Is My Average Emotional Intelligence Feeling?

How do I calculate my daily EiF? The best way is to track each feeling in a journal either online, phone or in a pocket notebook. Each time you feel a prominent feeling write or type it each time for 21 entries using the EiF Chart above in this article. As you keep track begin to notice the frequency of each feeling and you will be able to see a pattern emerge over time.

Twenty-one entries is a good starting point to uncover the feeling that comes up the most.

For example, Love, Gratitude, Annoyed, Annoyed, Resentment, Happy, Worry, Worry, Worry, Anger, Annoyed, Happy, Depressed, Annoyed, Anger, Boredom, Calm, Annoyed, Boredom, Anger, Annoyed. Now do a Tally of the most frequent feeling: What was your answer? Annoyed=6 entries.

Now what? Well, it seems that you are annoyed quite often. What are you mainly annoyed about? Health?, Wealth?, Love?, Fulfillment? Is it your weight? Not making enough money? Argue with your boyfriend/girlfriend? Haven’t done something you love to do in a while?

The longer Annoyance is unexpressed the likelihood you will drop down to Worry. However, if you do acknowledge, validate and act on your Annoyance you will be heading in the green feeling direction possibly to Calm or even Satisfied. This would be an increase in your EiF and feeling better.

You see, your average feeling is reflecting how you’re thinking in the long term. In order for you to advance into the higher green areas from Annoyance to Hope and above, the internal change will be needed. Which means each time you handle Annoyance by turning it around or flipping it into two positive statements will help you move up the EiF scale, while you continue to track for a new average feeling.

For instance, you track your feelings for another seven days and notice the average feeling has been Satisfaction! This is great news because you moved from Annoyance to Satisfaction a three feeling jump in 7 days. Awesome! This is a boost in emotional intelligence because you handled some internal dialogue which moved you up the EiF Scale.

Here’s why it’s Awesome. Because you changed the way you think by acknowledging and validating how you were feeling in the moment and flipping and turning your thought statement around…good for you!

13. How To Measure My Average Emotional Intelligence Feeling?

We touched on this a bit in the last few questions now we’re going to assemble the pieces. We will use the Test, Measure, Tweak method to help track and collect data. First, we need a baseline to know what your average thought/feeling is right now. We will start from the very beginning. “What’s Keeping You Up At Night?”

This is a good place to start because you have been living this top of mind distraction for some time now or you wouldn’t be up at night! The first step is to test, which you have already done because it’s keeping you up a night. What is the thought and feeling behind keeping me up at night? Thought/Feeling:

“I‘m worried about my job because I can’t keep up with the workload.”

Let’s get a measurement of how many nights this has been bothering you? You have been bothered by this for 7 days. So you have been testing this thought/feeling for 7 days and this is also your measuring period too.

The question now remains: “How much longer do I need to test and measure this condition of staying up at night?” You decide that seven days is long enough and want to do something about it is the tweak step.

Now that you handled keeping me up at night, you are now sleeping like a baby! Once well rested you are ready to measure your average EiF. The test and measuring period you chose is 7 days.

Get out a notebook, phone or journaling software and begin to note 2-4 times a day what your feeling is in the moment. Remember, it’s the name of the feeling we want not the reason why you have it. For instance; use the EiF Chart above to select your feeling.

The journaling entry looks like this: Date: 4/21/19, Happy, Calm, Satisfied, Hope; Date: 4/22/19 Love, Calm, Boredom, Satisfied. Collect feelings for the next five days. Then tally using the frequency method. What feeling came up the most? Satisfied?

Great! If there’s a tie select only one feeling. So in the last seven days, your average EiF is Satisfied. During this past seven days did you think satisfaction, feel satisfaction and do satisfaction? If all three matches then fantastic! You’re in Satisfaction this is your EiF Green Score.

14. Is Your Emotional Intelligence Score Low? Or High?

By looking at the result above your Green score is high. How do you define what is a low or high EiF Score? By looking at the EiF Score Chart above feeling in the green is a high score and any feeling in the red is a low score. After using the methods above to discover your average feeling check the EiF Scale Chart to see if it’s high or low.

This average feeling is only the feeling and is what it is…nothing more. You may feel compelled to have a reason for it…we are not looking for a reason or justification why you have this feeling. Because you have already tested it and measured it over a period of time. Which required you to think/feel about it too. There is a separate process to handle the average feeling.

15. How Do I Handle My Average EiF?

Let’s see if we can move up one or two feelings using Satisfaction as an example. Well, you’ve been satisfied now for quite some time and now you want to move up to Hope. It’s more realistic to move one feeling up instead of three or four. The internal personal change would be out of reality and too great, more than likely it wouldn’t last.

Use this method:

1. Assign a new thought: “I would Like to have a hopeful viewpoint.”
2. Assign a new feeling: Hope.
3. Do two new actions: Help someone improve self-confidence. Volunteer.
4. Review result: I felt Hopeful when I helped someone and for volunteering.
5. Feedback: Did I get what I wanted Yes? No? Yes, I did!

Now, repeat this same process over the next seven days with the exception of the actions. Unless you want to continue to volunteer or helping someone for a while. It’s okay if you choose to do other actions as long as the actions are in agreement with your thought/feeling of hopefulness.

You can continue this methodology to keep yourself in the high feelings and the more you do so the more consistent you will be regarding thought, feeling, actions, result, and feedback. Be aware on occasion it’s alright to feel the low feelings when it’s appropriate.

The low feelings give us contrast and comparison based on where our average feeling is. The low feelings exist because they are supposed to exist or we wouldn’t have them at all!

16. Can Low Emotional Intelligence Lead To Emotional Disorders?

Goleman (2010) mentions a sample of 8,098 Americans found 48 percent suffered at least one psychiatric problem during their lifetime.14 percent of these people were severely affected and developed three or more psychiatric disorders.

Where on the EiF Scale do these disorders live? Disorders live near the bottom of the Red color scale beginning with Resentment and ending in Fear. Disorder origins, however, begin on the top of the red scale at Boredom.

Boredom is the least energetic of the Red feelings. Boredom seems harmless on the surface but it broods an idle mind. When an idle mind gets going it begins to stir up the feelings beneath it. This is what happens when you are in boredom too long!

Next, it stimulates Annoyance and as you recall Annoyance is a form of nuisance. Your sensitivity and impatience to your surroundings begin to increase. As this increases, Worry is activated and this is where your anxiety begins to increase and potentially escalate. Once escalated you begin to Blame others, situations, things, and life in general.

Now that you’re Blaming this stirs up Anger, and then Hate and then Resentment and then Guilt and Depression and finally, Fear.

Some disorders that come from this chain reaction are Anxiety, Depression, Anorexia Nervosa, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Aggression, Moodiness, Emotional Malaise, Relationship Dysfunction, Helplessness, Mania, Melancholy and Obsessive-compulsive Disorder to name a few.

You may have felt these feelings at some point, and if they’re left unchecked, unacknowledged and unvalidated can lead in a direction that is not helpful for the individual. All is not lost!

These Red feelings are showing you that life may seem doom and gloom but isn’t. Because they are only a reflection of how your thinking and do not define you as a human being with tremendous value.

17. Can Low Emotional Intelligence Stimulate More Negative Feelings?

Yes, it can because one negative feeling that is energized will increase others if left unchecked. Think about an instance you felt Annoyed. It was not a big deal right? What happened when you sat in annoyance to long and you began to brew a bit. Did you Worry that your circumstance would get worse or did you just go into Blaming others?

Now that you’re Blaming and upsetting people you get Angry, and upset people more often. Your Anger has now escalated to Hate because it appears nothing is going your way. Since nothing is going your way you begin to Resent others and circumstances around you.

Now you have lost communication with people you care about, not sharing experiences, feel unloved and Guilty. You’re even more isolated and begin to withdraw from life and sink into acute Depression, and become Fearful that life seems to be doom and gloom.

So yes other negative feelings could stimulate other negative feelings if the initial negative feeling isn’t acknowledged and validated. This is why you track your daily average feeling so you can acknowledge and validate before it escalates! Here’s what a negative feeling chain looks like:

• Boredom- Idle Mind
• Annoyance- Nuisance to yourself and others
• Worry-  Fret about something
• Blame- Finding fault in someone or something
• Anger- Hostility aroused by a wrong
• Hate- Intense Dislike or Aversion
• Resentment- Causing injury or insult 
• Guilt-  Feeling responsible for some offense, act, remark
• Depression- Emotionally low-spirited
• Fear- Level of threat

18. Is Low Emotional Intelligence Associated With Fear?

Absolutely! Fear is our fight or flight response located in the Amygdala which assesses our daily threat levels. If you live in fear constantly your level of threat is on the alert that something dangerous is about to happen. Even if it’s the least threatening it seems monumental and can last for years (Goleman, 1997).

The issue is living in fear because fear itself is helpful when needed. For instance, let’s say you’re driving on the highway and a truck blows a tire, and a huge piece of tire and steel come flying toward you on the right side.

What do you do? Your fear response is flight, so you look around and it’s clear to swerve to the left a bit to avoid the shrapnel from hitting your windshield potentially cause injury to you.

You just used fear to prevent injury to yourself and potentially to other drivers too. When a person lives in fear they become paralyzed by what if’s… “If I drive to the store I know someone will crash into me.” “If I stand up in my shower I might fall, hit my head on the floor and die.” “If I shake your hand I’ll be infected by germs and get sick.”

These are prime examples of someone living in fear vs feeling fear. Remember, the EiF Scale in red feelings are all related to fear and are various degrees of fear. Boredom is on the light side and Depression on the heavy side.

The feeling of fear can save our lives and living in fear paralyzes or potentially destroy us. In either case, the fear feeling is the balance side of love and without this balance, fear would consume us.

19. Does Improving Emotional Intelligence Make Me A Better Person?

According to Graham Winfrey author of the Inc. article, “4 Ways Mr. Rogers Forged Deep Relationships With Everyone He Met” does. Mr. Fred Rogers; Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,  was known to millions of kids and adults for 33 years on PBS.

Mr. Rogers Followed four main emotional intelligence principles; Approach Conflict Head-On, Foster Growth Through Acceptance, Communicate Better By Listening More and Expect Mistakes (Winfrey, 2018).

Approach Conflict Head-On: Whenever you listen to other people opinions you have conflict and the best way to address conflict is head-on with dignity and diplomacy. It’s a good idea to go direct to an issue or person rather through a filter or another person.

Foster Growth Through Acceptance: Mr. Rogers felt that if you practiced inclusivity and acceptance it would help a person learn and grow as an individual. Read some of the lyrics he wrote for an episode, “I like you as you are, exactly and precisely, I think you turned out nicely, and I like you as you are” (Winfrey, 2018).

Communicate Better By Listening More: Listening more meant you had to embrace silence in order for the other person to express their opinion. Mr. Rogers called silence as, “One of the greatest gifts we have.” His method of questioning was simple, direct and short and allowed the person to speak completely without interruption (Winfrey, 2018).

Expect Mistakes: By not making a big deal about the mistake was more effective than escalating the mistake itself. He said, “The most important learning is the ability to accept and expect mistakes and deal with the disappointments that they bring” (Winfrey, 2018). 

Mr. Rogers explains the children have very deep feelings like adults and are trying hard to understand what they mean, and the key is for adults to understand them so we can best respond to their feelings. He mentions that using this method improves the child’s and adult’s emotional intelligence.

Related: How to Become a Better Person in a Relationship

Related: How to Improve Yourself Every Day

20. Does My Emotional Intelligence Help Me Sleep?

It sure does! Think about for a minute when you’re calm, happy or amorous do you have any issues falling asleep? Probably not because your mind is in a state of peace and harmony.

When Health, Wealth, Love and Fulfillment are all in alignment your life seems effortless. Other people look up to you, ask what you’re doing differently, are you on drugs, etc. People in your circle of influence notice you and want to be around you.

When night time comes you put your cell phone asleep, maybe watch a little TV and go to sleep. You fall asleep quite swiftly and before you know it you’re in dreamland having a good ole time! Sounds great, doesn’t it? It sure does.

How about the other side of the coin, your, bored, annoyed and worried. How you sleeping now! Are you counting the sheep…99, 98,97…? What number are you on right now? These feelings are relatively draining before you even begin your day! Sounds tiring, doesn’t it? You betcha! Think about when you are stuck in boredom, the concentration of your thoughts of bored to boredom is increased. The same goes for annoyed and worried.

Which side do you want to live on…calm, happy, amorous, or bored, annoyed or worried? One will let you sleep like a baby and the other …well you will become best friends with the sheep! Baaaa! If you’re looking for sheep friends then keep counting!

In order for the sheep to go to sleep, first acknowledge and handle why you are annoyed after that do the same for bored and worried. What am I are bored about? What am I worried about?

21. When Is It Appropriate To Use Emotional Intelligence?

Well, since your mind never sleeps…as long as you can. Here’s why even though you’re sleeping the subconscious is constantly at work. The subconscious job is to record data 24/7 if you are aware of it or not.

Be mindful of the thoughts you go to bed with because potentially they can manifest sometime in the future. Maybe the next day, two days from your awakening, etc.

Go to sleep with a green feeling and focus on it until your conscious mind falls asleep. Then the subconscious mind will take that as truth and manifest more of that feeling in the future. The conscious job is to make sense of the world around it like logic, deduction, induction, test, measure, tweak, organization, order to name a few.

Once the conscious mind is ready to store the organized information, it is transferred to the subconscious mind to play out automatically. For example, when you drive your car do you think of the thousands and thousands of steps it takes to do that? Probably not because you would be mentally exhausted trying to so.

In essence, the conscious mind is the gatekeeper for the subconscious mind so be careful what you let in! When you’re emotionally intelligent you can communicate to your subconscious mind and tell it what you want. So when do you turn off emotional intelligence…you don’t. It’s like a muscle uses it or lose it.

The more you use emotional intelligence the better and faster you will get. Use it wisely because it’s there for you to command not the other way around. If you’re deliberate about Ei you will feel better and feel more in control of yourself and in life.

22. Can Emotional Intelligence Skills Improve My Thinking?

Yes according to (Bradberry & Greaves 2009) mention as you increase your awareness by using Ei you improve your thinking. The four areas of focus to help increase awareness are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. As you work on these four areas your emotional intelligence improves over time.

You became aware earlier in the article that as your thinking improves your emotional intelligence improves as well. Why is this? Because thought and feeling are cognitive (Thought). How do you feel when you have a positive thought and a negative feeling? Confused? Agitated? Conflicted? These are normal signs of thought and feeling disagreement because a negative thought and positive thought cannot exist at the same time.

Usually, we pick one or the other because it helps relieve how we’re thinking and feeling. Most often these positive and negative thought/feeling are actually two statements.

For example: “I’m feeling great, but don’t want to do laundry.” If you’re feeling great then laundry isn’t the issue right? What’s the thought behind feeling great? You guessed it thinking great! What about, “but don’t want to do laundry.” What feeling is behind this statement? Annoyance

In summary, living in green feelings will help grow your emotional intelligence and thinking faster vs the red feelings. By improving, specific areas in your life will also enhance your thinking and emotional intelligence.

A thought and a feeling are a reflection of each other so you cannot have a positive thought with a negative feeling. If you do you will be out of sorts because thought and feeling do not agree. The objective is to get your thought and feel to agree. 

23. Can Emotional Intelligence Skills Improve My Money Management?

You be the judge. According to (Smith, 2009) author of the journal article, The Emotional Intelligence of Money: A case for financial coaching mentions that money management is engrained not only in our neuron pathways but our rational and emotional intelligence.

In a quote from J.P. Morgan, stated, “A man makes a decision for two reasons – the good reason and the real reason” (Smith, 2009). In other words a- socially acceptable one, and a logical one that is highly subjective, intuitive or instinctual.

The second important fact is our emotional mind is intuitive and fast and can store data based on social, cognitive and economic biases. This, in turn, influences our financial decision-making. Some biases are:

Selective perception: We focus on supporting existing views;

Group dynamics: We follow trends that increase our risk by making decisions that don’t suit us.

What does this teach us about money? One, we have a perceived bias about currency and that we make spending decisions based on what other people have done or advise us what to do with money. Ask the questions, “Is this a good reason to spend money on? Or “The real reason to spend money on?”

What’s the difference between the two? The good reason is a want and the real reason is a need. The good reason is emotional and the real reason is logical…which side wins determine which side you feed the most.

Maslow idea about behavioral change can be helpful when managing money. His concept mentions we move into four phases (Smith, 2009):

• Unconscious incompetence: We don’t know what we don’t know;
• Conscious incompetence: Where we begin to know what we do not know;
• Conscious competence: Where we are aware of what we know and we act accordingly;
• Unconscious competence: Make and do automatic-habitual good decisions naturally.

24. Can Emotional Intelligence Skills Enhance My Relationships?

Yes, you can use it in relationships such as wife, husband, daughter, son, girlfriend, boyfriend, mom, dad, uncles, aunts, all-cousins, close friends, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, living things, material things, and strangers. Wow, I think I covered them all…maybe missed a few now it’s your turn to add more!

Hopefully, you have learned a few lessons in this article to help you elevate your emotional intelligence, and can apply some of those lessons to enhance relationships in your life.

Let’s start with your wife and try these three steps:

• Listen. Most times wives want an ear to listen without solving the problem.
• Do the little things she desires like to cook her dinner, draw her bath and take her to work once a week.
• Saying “I Love You” as many times as necessary love as no limits!

Related: How to Be a Better Wife and Improve Your Marriage?

For husbands, try these:

• Go to a crotch kicker movie on occasion.
• Show affection on occasion.
• Plan a surprise dinner.

Related: How to Be a Better Husband? 

For the rest of the group use listening skills, do the little things and communicate as often as you need to.

Dr. Dorrance Hall (2018) also confirms how emotional intelligence can be helpful in relationships. Do these two Ei strategies to hone your skills. You’re using Ei when you can read other people’s emotions. Some people are good at hiding emotions for personal reasons while others can express them easily. Those who wear their heart on their sleeves are easiest to read.

The second thing you can do is understand the connection between your actions and other’s emotional reactions. So if you break a promise this will hurt the other person’s feelings. Dr. Dorrance Hall also mentions to watch how your thoughts interact with your feelings throughout the day.

She says, “Thoughts release chemicals in the brain that fuel the way we feel about things” (Dorrance Hall, 2018). Turn this idea around by supplying the brain with positive chemicals!

25. Will My Emotional Intelligence Skills Improve My Health & Wellness?

Absolutely! Think about for a minute if you live in the low Ei range. Are you really excited to eat healthy, exercise or meditate? No way! Too much energy is spent on worrying, being anxious, depressed, angry, annoyed, fear, resentment, hate, guilty, or bored.

Remember, it’s okay to have the low Ei feelings flow through you, by feeling what you’re feeling in the moment allows you to be in control of your Ei, and two being authentic by validating and acknowledging what you’re feeling in the moment.

You learned earlier feelings are communicating constantly and need constant acknowledgment. Because suppressing low Ei feelings energize them even more.

So, how does it help? According to John Staughton author of, “Can Emotional Intelligence Affect Physical Health?”(Staughton, 2017) There are four strategies you can use to improve your health and wellness.

• Self-Awareness: Pay attention to how you feel and do your best to understand and explain the feeling, and how you’re reacting to them. Then ask, “Will my Ei affect those around me?
• Self-Regulation: Be in control over yourself, measure your Ei feeling, own your actions and acknowledge your Ei Feeling.
• Motivation: Is the reason (Why) behind your Ei. What is the goal of your intended communication? To share your opinion in a diplomatic way? Injure? Hurt? Whatever it is use the, “Think Twice and Act Once” mentality.
• Empathy: Begins within! It’s knowing how other people may potentially feel and the effect the feelings will have. Don’t be confused feeling for other people…that’s their job. You cannot make a person feel something they’re already feeling.
• Social Skills: Is the ability to listen, communicate, share opinions with diplomacy and resolve conflicts if they arise.

26. Will Ei Help Me Feel More Fulfilled?

Fulfillment has different meanings for all of us. Fulfillment is living the highest Ei Feeling-Love. It’s doing things for others and animals by helping in some way, it’s having a higher purpose. For instance, volunteering, community involvement, raising kids, paying someone’s grocery bill, holding a door open for someone, etc.

Gentle acts of kindness go a long way for you and for those you help. This article would be my fulfillment to all readers who read and are impacted by the words. My job is to supply and organize this information for your benefit.

When you live in High Ei Feelings, you are more than likely to produce acts of kindness that return back to you increasing your Ei fulfillment. For instance, while standing in line at the grocery store you feel compelled to pay for the person’s grocery bill in front of you.

I’ve done this with the person behind me after the cashier total’s their bill, and I secretly tell the cashier, “I got this.” I get the bill amount before I leave then I walk away, while nodding at them, before they see who I am to thank me. The look on the person’s face is priceless! But the fulfillment is just doing it with anonymity. My Fulfillment in action!

Next on the list of high Ei Feeling is Gratitude. We kind of know what this is right? I hear it quite often on the radio and conversations, but I don’t see it in action, as often as, it is mentioned. Here’s why intent is good but the action is best! “Say what you mean and mean what you say then do it.

It’s only when you do it that you are actually fulfilled. The thought and feeling of gratitude are nice, but there’s one more step…action. Gratitude puts love into action. So if it’s Gratitude you’re wanting to demonstrate then choose a person, target or goal and do it at the moment.

27. Can My Emotional Intelligence Lead To Better Grades In School?

Yes, it can! Think about it when in your in a distracted Red Low Ei Feeling do you really want to study? Probably not because the mindset is not set to study, it’s set for distraction. Until you raise the Ei Feeling into the Green you will not be up for studying.

I’m a living testament that Ei can be enhanced over time. I also believe I had the innate Ei ability early on as a three-year-old…walking around barely able to speak saying “theng goo, theng goo”, which meant thank you! I’m a first generation born American from an Italian family. My first language was Italian and struggled through school until 10th grade when I made the honor roll for the first time.

I can tell I used mainly my Ei abilities to schmooze and use humor to help compensate for not understanding academic subjects. My teachers were good and understanding because I was able to communicate how I felt in an authentic way. Because of this authenticity and genuineness friends and teachers wanted to help because I wanted help!

Although I made the honor roll in tenth and eleventh grades I fell short my senior year and graduated with a 2.8 GPA. Six years later when I matured and learned that my Ei had dropped into the Red Zone I made an effort to raise my Ei feeling to Hope. When I did this my grades were consistent A’s the first 2 years of community college and graduated as an honor student with a GPA of 3.5…I was very happy.

I thought to myself can I repeat this at a university level? Because I was Hopeful I eventually became authentically happy. I enrolled at Liberty University and 2 years later I graduated as an honor student and GPA of 3.5. How was I able to maintain my GPA? I learned how to navigate my Ei Feelings moving up and down the Ei Feeling Scale at lightning speed.

In a study by the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (2006) proved that emotional intelligence skills can be taught or learned to enhance academic performance. “Greater levels of emotional intelligence can be expected to correlate with academic performance even when controlling for traditional markers of intelligence, such as GPA” (Romanelli, Cain, and Smith, 2006).

28. Can I Use Emotional Intelligence To Manage My Stress And Anxiety?

According to (Yip and Cote, 2012), you can. They found in their experiments that Ei facilitates decision making. Individuals with higher Ei levels can identify which events caused their feelings, and in most cases not connect them with current decisions.

Yip and Cote were able to predict feelings of anxiety and determined the feelings were not related to current decisions. When the source of anxiety was identified and not related to current decision anxiety was reduced.

Yip and Cote concluded that the ability to navigate Ei feelings would guard against the biased effects of secondary anxiety. Which means that it would help individuals determine if the anxiety is relevant to current decisions.

What does this mean to you? Let’s look at anxiety as a time element. When you live in the moment what is your anxiety level? Relatively calm? More than likely. What happens when you go two weeks out? Still calm? Maybe? What about 3 months out? Anxiety starting to increase? Think so?

Anxiety is connected to potential future events and decisions based on the past. Woha! What? In other words, anxiety goes up the further you look forward because past information is old information, and cannot possibly have all correct solutions for future outcomes. This is why anxiety goes up!

What can I do about it? Remember the Ei Feeling Scale? What’s at the bottom? FEAR=False Evidence Appearing Real is the real culprit in increasing Anxiety which is the Worry feeling. Anxiety is a derivative of Fear.

Three steps you can take right now.

1. Stay in the moment-all we have is at the moment.
2. Gauge your anxiety level by assigning a time frame i.e. Low=current; Medium=two weeks out; High=three months out (You set the time frame that works for you).
3. Use your gut whisperer to help keep you out of the low range.

Related: How to Get Rid of Social Anxiety?

29. Can Managing My Ei Advance My Career?

Yes, it will! Technically, your career is your current employment position and how you interact with other employees, leaders and supervisors will determine if you advance. This is where you social Ei comes in because if you’re well liked (Green Feelings) by people who have a direct impact on you and are your peers, the more likely you will be advanced.

According to Jen Shirkani, an EQ expert says that “A person’s emotional intelligence at work is only as strong as their last conversation” (Shirkani, 2019).

Shirkani mentions Work Ei has three main Rs namely Recognize, Read and Respond.

Tips To Improve Your Ei:

Ei As A Leader: Make sure you follow the chain of command because this will respect all leadership roles. By jumping ahead of the team leader would show disrespect and possibly make the team leader frustrated for not being kept in the loop(Shirkani, 2019).

Related: 24 Best Leadership Books of All Time

Ei Leading A Meeting: Look around the room so you can read body language and facial expressions to determine if you need to make adjustments if you lose your audience attention. Regain attention by engaging and asking questions and for input (Shirkani, 2019).

Ei Attending A Meeting: Add value by participating in the meeting and share your opinion regardless if you think it’s not worthy. Remember, opinions are neither right nor wrong(Shirkani, 2019).

Ei During Performance Interview: Welcome helpful suggestions and ignore unhelpful negative comments. Know the difference between criticism and critique. Criticism is a direct attack toward the person and Critiquing is identifying known behavior. If you’re taking the feedback personally you may have just converted critiquing into criticism. Speak in a calm voice and note the critiquing feedback (Shirkani, 2019).

Ei After Receiving Performance Feedback: Adapt by putting the feedback in action immediately. This shows that you are receptive to change and are willing to take on new challenges. It also shows that you are self-aware and care about what you’re doing. The actionable feedback reciprocates back to your supervisor and acknowledges their suggestions…essentially making them right! (Shirkani, 2019).

Ei As A Hiring Manager: Pay attention to how the interviewee is receptive to feedback because this is a sign of high Ei. Ask this question to test Ei, “Have you ever unintentionally offended or upset somebody? And describe the details for me” (Shirkani, 2019).

This question answers three of the four pillars of Ei…Self-Awareness, Social Awareness and Managing Feelings (The fourth pillar is Relationship Management). This question helps because you can see if the person can own their mistakes (Shirkani, 2019).

Related: 23 Best Books on Emotional Intelligence

30. How Can Ei Help Me Reduce My Worrying About Money?

Two Hypotheses, High orientation toward money is linked to low EI and; Low money orientation is linked to a high degree of life adjustment. A research study completed by (Engelberg & Sjoberg, 2006) proves high money orientation (attitude) is connected to low emotional Intelligence and low money orientation is connected to high emotional intelligence.

What does this mean? In high money orientation attitude, a person’s main drive is to pursue money and overreact emotionally to economic conditions. Being over-reactive means you make money decisions in the Red zone. In most cases decisions we eventually regret we made.

Low money orientation attitude is when a person copes with their emotions regarding money without being over-stimulated, which are controlled by Green feelings.

These are well thought out money plans and decisions that are not based on guilt. High emotional intelligence tends to devalue power, status, and prestige of money.

There are three types of attitudes which minimize a sense of vulnerability.

• Security; compulsive savers motivated by reducing anxiety associated by mistrust toward others, becoming less dependent and confined to the environment (Engelberg & Sjoberg, 2006).
• Freedom; motivated by reducing anxiety associated by becoming less dependent on others and not confined to the environment (not as compulsive as savers) (Engelberg & Sjoberg, 2006).
• Power. Power grabbers amass fortunes in order to control people around them and to avoid helplessness and humiliation (Engelberg & Sjoberg, 2006).

The spendthrift handles depressive moods and feelings of rejection by spending money. The bargain hunter buys things to lessen anger and depression and the gambler lives for the feeling of excitement of not going to lose.

The relationship between money and Ei is defined as, “EI is essentially defined as involving a more efficient processing and management of emotions”(Engelberg & Sjoberg 2006). They go on to mention that negative feelings are associated with lack of control in taking care of personal economic issues. The Red feelings get the best of them!

So what is one to do when it comes to worrying about money?

1. Stop, take a deep breath through your nose-hold it for two seconds, then exhale slowly through the mouth for 3 seconds. Now, Ask yourself, “Is this anxiety I’m feeling related to a past circumstance?”
2. Check which group of feelings you’re currently in RED? or GREEN?
3. Handle the anxiety by turning the thought around to, “I am in control of my finances and I’m feeling hopeful about it.”
4. Handle an impending money issue as soon as you can.

31. How Can I Use My Ei To Pay For My Kids College?

First, handle your Ei Feeling. What are you feeling right now? Worry? Guilt? Annoyance? Calm? Satisfaction? Hopeful?

Careful…one group of feelings will help you plan and strategize over time and the other group will paralyze and overstimulate you. If you happen to be in the red then feel whatever you’re feeling in the moment, let the feeling flow through you and reassess your feeling after a few minutes. Remember, a series of green thoughts will pull in more green thoughts do this until you feel Calm, Satisfied or Hopeful.

The green Ei Feelings will help guide your decision making leading you to the best choice of actions possible to select the educational saving program, right school, monthly saving amount and total cost of a four-year education.

Once you are in the green feelings, take a couple of simple actions. For instance, an Educational Savings Plan. One- research online for different education saving plans in your state; two- save 2-3 acceptable choices; three- prioritize the 3 choices in order of calling or contacting them; four- call your first choice if you have questions.

Next on the action list is the Right School. What is your Ei Feeling for this topic? List some actions- One: Ask your son/daughter what their school choices are; two: Document choices on a list; three: Prioritize list from 1st choice to the last choice; four: Schedule tours for first four choices.

Next on the action list is Monthly Saving Amount. What is your Ei Feeling for this topic? Calm List some actions- one: Go to the bank and set up ESP account to deduct monthly payment automatically.

Next on the action list is Total Cost For A Four Year Education. What is your Ei Feeling for this topic? Annoyed comeback to this one until you are in the green to create a list of actions.

32. How Do I Use Ei To Raise Happy, Healthy and Productive Children?

According to Dr. Laura Markham, a clinical psychologist in an article called, “5 Steps To Nurture Emotional Intelligence in Your Child” you can. Try these five steps to put your child on the road to being emotionally intelligent.

Acknowledge Your Child’s Perspective and Empathize

In other words, let your child know how important their perspective is by acknowledging and validating using empathy. Because making fun of them will backfire on you and cause them to store the emotional experience for a later time. Think of it this way; deprivation causes the thing wanted to increase in value. For instance, The more you don’t acknowledge or validate your child the more they will need to act out to get the attention they need (Markham, 2019).

For example,  “I know you you’re unhappy right now and want to stay up late tonight, but it’s time to go to bed now,”  In the first sentence use a positive statement and a feeling while referring to their want, and a second statement using what you want them to do. By identifying a feeling they can begin to associate how they feel with a particular thought which helps by increasing their Ei.

Here’s how deprivation works: You are going for a jog during a warm part of the day and during the jog your thirst begins to increase. Since you forgot the water bottle at home you will be deprived of water for the duration of the jog. The longer the deprivation the stronger the urge to drink increases.

You finally make it home and the first thing you do is reach for a glass of water. Now, ask this question, “Was The urge to drink water as valuable in the beginning of the run or at the end of the run? If you chose after that would be correct because you were more deprived by the end of the jog then in the beginning.

Allow For Expression

As we read above depriving our thought and feeling can become trapped in our heads seeking a way out. Feelings are there for a reason and give us contrast to other feelings keeping us in balance. So anger and other feelings are real to the person and need expression (Markham, 2019).

If you have ever used a pressure cooker then you will understand this metaphor. Imagine your mind is the pot and lid, and on top of the lid is a relief valve to reduce pressure inside the pot keeping it from exploding (Emotions). Your thoughts and feelings work the same way. The more they are deprived of expression the more likely you will need to vent. And if you can’t vent you may explode!

Children’s feelings are just as important as our own and allowing them to express without judgment, shame or blame will help them understand their thoughts and feelings, and how to express them. This will teach them how to be emotionally intelligent because they will learn how to let feelings flow through them. Here’s an example from Dr. Markham, “You’re so mad your brother broke your toy! I understand, AND it’s never okay to hit, even when you’re very mad. Tell your brother in words how you feel” (Markham, 2019).

Listen To Your Child’s Feelings

As you learned a few minutes ago deprivation can cause harm if thoughts and feelings are not expressed. However, listening is the other part of the equation because listening directs the thoughts and feelings toward someone or something. Which helps us feel safe from harm and release the trapped energy.

Let the child express when and what needs expressing at the moment. Resist the urge to handling their feelings for them and help them feel safe. Children have a way to heal themselves. Here’s another example from Dr. Markham, “You are so mad you’re yelling at me to go away. I’ll move back a little. But these feelings hurt and scare you, and I won’t leave you alone with these upsetting feelings. I’m right here and you’re safe. You can be as sad and mad as you want, and when you’re ready, I am right here to hug you” (Markham, 2019)..

Teach Problem Solving

After listening to your child and allowing their feelings to flow through them it’s time to teach them how to problem solve. Once the thoughts and feeling are discharged check their mood by asking, how they’re feeling by restating in similar words what they just expressed to you. For instance, “You’re pretty frustrated with Sam not giving you a turn. Sometimes you feel like not playing with him anymore. But you also really like playing with him. I wonder what you could say to Sam so that he could hear how you feel?” (Markham, 2019).

Let’s use the example above.  I wonder what you could say to Sam so that he could hear how you feel?”  Wait for your child to respond with a solution. Your child says, “I‘ll play with you if we can take turns playing.”  Acknowledge and validate the response, and when he comes back from his friend’s house ask your child how playing with Sam turned out?

Play It Out

Help your child play out his/her big feelings of neediness, frustration, anger, sadness, frightened, jealousy, etc. through play. Usually, from these feelings, a negative pattern is being acted out because the child doesn’t know how to handle big feelings.

Instead of taking the behavior personally, create a game around the big feelings. For instance, The child is frightened by an unusual noise coming from the kitchen. You recognize the humming noise of the refrigerator, but your child is scared to go in the kitchen. How do you help? Maybe you get the child to hum along with you, “Wheels on the bus go round and round” to mimic the sound of the frig. Say, “You sound just like the frig!” (Markham, 2019).

33. Can Ei Help Me Be A Better Leader?

Yes, it can! The article by Mind Tools content team (2019) summarizes the five key emotional intelligence pillars; 1. Self-Awareness; 2. Self-Regulation; 3. Motivation; 4. Empathy; 5. Social Skills.

My entire emotional intelligence article is based on 3 of the five pillars, Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation and Empathy. Think of these five pillars as the whole to the sum of its parts, and are interconnected.

If all five pillars are in harmony then you have a high level of emotional intelligence. If one or more is out harmony, emotional intelligence is reduced by the number of pillars that are not functioning at an optimal level.

It’s the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. My question is then what happens when a part is not functioning optimally? The whole is diminished to the same degree that one part has diminished.

Let’s look at the, “I have my ducks in a row” statement which sounds good, but what happens when you throw a piece of bread into the row? Are your ducks still in a row? or did they scatter? If they are still in a row then your emotional intelligence is relatively high. If they scattered, then one of the pillars is functioning less than optimum.

Let’s review each of the five pillars so you can evaluate which one needs improvement.

Self-Awareness

Has many meanings and many levels. The easiest way to be self-aware is to “put yourself in the other person’s shoes” or “Walk a mile in the other person’s shoes.” If the shoe fits then wear it! How does walking a mile in someone else’s shoes work? This draws on three other Ei Pillars; Self-Regulation, Empathy, and Social Awareness. Using your Ei Pillars increases your Ei, helps you identify your own strengths and weaknesses and your humility. It takes you out of the ME state into the WE state of mind just by flipping the “M” upside down from ME to WE!  (Mind Tools, 2019).

Do these steps to increase Self-awareness:

• Keep a journal either on your phone or a pocket notebook and spend a few minutes entering your thoughts and feelings. For example, “Today I had a good day, my work turned out good, had dinner with good friends. My overall feeling was Happy.” The next day: “Had a difficult task at work, but completed it, Had an argument with a coworker but settled it before we left work, Went home and watched TV, “My overall feeling was Annoyance.”

• As you learned when you live in the Green feelings your mind has more clarity, and it feels like things around you are moving at a slow pace. When in the Red feelings you become over-stimulated and the deeper you go into the red feelings, the more stimulation you will get. When you can move freely up and down the EiF Scale you are using emotional intelligence which leads to Self-Regulation.

Self-Regulation

Means you have your feelings under control and know exactly what thought and feeling go together. So, in essence, you let both the thought and feeling flow through you without reason and judgment, allowing them to be what they are. This allows you to be Calm, Accountable and true to your Core Values (Mind Tools, 2019).

Motivation

First and foremost, know your core values are the wind that directs your sails toward your life’s mission. Goals are controlled by your Vision, Mission, and Principles. Vision is your Life’s mission, Mission helps get you there, Principles are Core Values in daily action, Goals have specific endpoints and Targets are daily action steps to keep you on track.

By knowing your Core Values, Vision, Mission, Principles, Goals and Targets, it will help you answer, “Why you’re doing your job?”, “Where you stand,” “Keeping a good outlook and perspective on life” (Mind Tools, 2019).

Empathy

It takes us back to, “Walking A Mile In Someone’s Shoes. When a leader does this, He/She is putting the other person’s perspective front and center by showing they care about the individual’s opinion. Pay attention to your own body language and the body language of others, because this too is a form of expression such as, crossing the arms, pursing the lips, rolling the eyes or moving feet back and forth (Mind Tools, 2019). This could be sending the wrong message to either person.

Related: Why is Body Language Important?

In addition, acknowledge and validate people’s feelings because this will curb any hostility, resentment or even make them feel good too.

Social Awareness

Leaders are excellent communicators and respond diplomatically to allow the freedom of communication and ideas to flow. They are good at managing change, conflict resolutions and getting the team to work on a project. A good leader participates with the team and praises accordingly (Mind Tools, 2019).

34. Will Ei Contain My Job Stress Burnout Rate?

Absolutely! According to a research study conducted by (Mohammadyfar, Khan and Tamini, 2009) found that teachers with high levels of emotional intelligence were able to adapt and cope with changes more efficiently because they were able to emotionally manage and understand their feelings.

The sample size of 250 high school teachers in Tehran, Iran were studied. “The results showed that emotional intelligence and job burnout were explained 43.9% of mental health and 13.5% of the variance of physical health.”

So 43.9% is mental burnout and 13.5% physical burnout. I don’t know about you but these are significant findings, which proves the power of Ei harmony in, life, success, satisfaction, well-being, relationship management, occupational stress, work success, performance and leadership (Mohammadyfar, Khan and Tamini 2009).

The article mentions that negative emotional states (Red Feelings) are associated with unhealthy habit patterns of psychological functioning such as smoking and other unhealthful behaviors. Positive (Green Feelings) is associated with healthier cardiovascular, immune systems and regulating better moods and feelings.

By expressing and understanding the relationship between feelings, moods, and emotions affect our physical, mental health, stress and adaptation in a healthful way. “Adaptive coping might be conceptualized as emotional intelligence in action, supporting mastery emotions, emotional growth, and both cognitive and emotional differentiation, allowing us to evolve in an ever-changing world” (Mohammadyfar, Khan and Tamini 2009).

Do these 3 actions while at work:

1. Take a five-minute break away from the work area such as looking outside a window or going outside.
2. Take 5 minutes away from the work area and breathe in through your nose for 3 seconds and out of your mouth for 3 seconds slowly. Do this 3 times.
3. Pay attention to your current feeling. Are you currently in, Calm, Satisfaction, Hope, Joyful Expectation, Excitement, Happiness, Passion, Joy, Gratitude or Love? Or Boredom, Annoyance, Worry, Blame, Anger, Hate, Resentment, Guilt, Depression or Fear. 

How do you know which feeling you’re in? Watch your behavior; your words, body language, facial expressions these are external clues you can measure. Remember, you cannot have a positive thought and a negative feeling this is a mismatch and disharmony.

Summary

What is emotional intelligence and how it affects your life? Emotional Intelligence is using your emotions to communicate, regulate and adapt while being empathic and motivated to be Socially responsible for yourself and others. In return for being Emotionally Intelligent (Ei) your life will be happier and more fulfilling.

I wrote this article for you! Because it is in alignment with my own Four Core Values: Honesty, Humor, Integrity, and Tenacity. But also, my life’s vision, mission, and principles to help my fellow person be more, do more and have more.

Now, All I ask of you is, not only read this article but put the three takeaways into action, review your result and answer the feedback question…Did I get what I wanted Yes? or NO?

• What were your three greatest takeaways?
• When will you implement them?
• What result did you get?
• Test over time
• What is your feedback? Got what I wanted Yes? or No?

What’s next? You learned that emotional intelligence has to do with many things especially when it comes to monitoring, controlling and manipulating your feelings. You were shown by writing down your feelings and tracking them over time would uncover your average feeling. In turn, would uncover how you’re really thinking. Also, you learned by tracking feelings using the EiF Scale either typing in your phone or writing in a journal. What if there was an easier and faster way to track current feelings and average feeling in less than 30 seconds? Would you use it?

Well, there is! I invented the Wheel Potential App for Apple phones IOS System. Android version will be here within three months or sooner. I’ve been using Wheel Potential App since July 2017 and personally have 3,112 feelings recorded with an average feeling of Joyful Expectation. Yes, I do feel annoyed, angry, happy, joy, love, worry, bored, calm etc, but I don’t live in them! I feel them by letting those feelings flow through me and so can you by downloading the app and using it with authenticity and genuineness!

Take Wheel Potential for a spin, feel better or your money back!

Hold your iPhone camera up to the code then follow the on-screen prompts.

It’s that easy!

May you never be the same again after reading this article and congratulations for reading 13,338 words!

Good for you! For taking time out of your day to read this article!

References for Emotional Intelligence Article

Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart.

Dickson, R. T. (2019, March 20). Three Steps To Develop Your Emotional Intelligence. Retrieved April 28, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2019/03/20/three-steps-to-develop-your-emotional-intelligence/#22d719106900

Dorrance Hall, E. (2018). Building Emotional Intelligence for Better Relationships. Retrieved May 1, 2019, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/conscious-communication/201806/building-emotional-intelligence-better-relationships

Emotional Intelligence in LeadershipLearning How to Be More Aware. (2019). Retrieved May 1, 2019, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_45.htm

Engleberg, E., & Sjoberg, L. (2006). Money Attitudes and Emotional Intelligence. Semantics Scholar. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2a36/f443a8d48afb6f144a0bab97fd3f29e3f7d8.pdf.

Fabiano, J. (2019, April 12). 9 ways you should use emotional intelligence at work. Retrieved April 24, 2019, from https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/9-ways-to-use-emotional-intelligence-at-work

Goleman, D. (2010). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. London: Bloomsbury.

Markham, L. (2019). 5 Steps To Nurture Emotional Intelligence in Your Child. Retrieved April 30, 2019, from https://www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/emotional-intelligence/steps-to-encourage

Mohammadyfar, M. A., Khan, M. S., & Tamini, B. K. (n.d.). The Effect of Emotional Intelligence and Job Burnout on Mental and Physical Health. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology,35(2), 219-226.

Priemer, D. (2019, March 22). Three Questions to Gauge Emotional Intelligence. Retrieved April 27, 2019, from https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/three-questions-to-gauge-emotional-intelligence/

Romanelli, F., Cain, & Smith, K. (2006). Emotional Intelligence as a Predictor of Academic and/or Professional Success. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education,70(3), 69th ser. doi: https://doi.org/10.5688/aj700369

Staughton, J. (2018, October 22). Can Emotional Intelligence Affect Physical Health? » Science ABC. Retrieved April 30, 2019, from https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/can-emotional-intelligence-affect-physical-health.html

Stein, S., & Book, H. E. (2011). The EQ edge emotional intelligence and your success. Mississauga, Ont.: Jossey-Bass.

Quora. (2018, March 02). 10 Simple Habits That Will Noticeably Improve Your Social Skills. Retrieved April 29, 2019, from https://www.inc.com/quora/10-simple-habits-that-will-noticeably-improve-your-social-skills.html

Winfrey, G. (2018, June 08). 4 Ways Mr. Rogers Forged Deep Relationships With Everyone He Met. Retrieved April 25, 2019, from https://www.inc.com/graham-winfrey/mr-rogers-documentary-wont-you-be-my-neighbor.html

Yip, J., & Cote, S. (2013). The Emotionally Intelligent Decision Maker: Emotion-Understanding Ability Reduces the Effect of Incidental Anxiety on Risk Taking. Psychological Science,24(2), 48-55. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23408590