10 Ways to Improve Emotional Intelligence

Consider the best person in a professional or personal setting. It is not necessarily the smartest, most technical, or most “right-minded” person. It is the person who appears to know what people are looking for. They remain calm when things go wrong. They can also withstand disagreement without harming the relationship. It was probably their emotional intelligence that set them apart. Peter Salovey and John Mayer were the first to formally define emotional intelligence in 1990. They described it as the ability to accurately perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions effectively. This applies to both oneself and others.

Over the past three decades, research has consistently demonstrated that emotional intelligence is a strong determinant of life and job success. People can develop it at any age, whereas IQ (Intelligence Quotient) generally remains more stable (Goleman, 1995). In this article, we discuss what emotional intelligence is and 10 scientifically proven ways to improve it.

What is Emotional Intelligence and Why is it Important?

Emotional intelligence (EI), also known as emotional quotient or EQ, usually includes four interrelated capacities. These include recognising one’s own emotions and those of other people. They also involve understanding the meaning of emotions and how they impact the self and others. Managing one’s own feelings is another important capacity. Finally, EI involves using emotions to inform thinking and actions effectively (Mayer et al., 2004). Daniel Goleman, who popularised the concept, identified five key components in his 1995 book Emotional Intelligence. These components are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.

Research shows that greater emotional intelligence strengthens relationships, improves leadership effectiveness, increases job satisfaction, and supports more adaptive decision-making under stress (Schutte et al., 2007). High EI people are not people who never feel any difficult emotions. They are individuals who know how to work with those feelings and emotions, but have not been led by them. The 10 strategies listed below focus on each of the key dimensions of EI and offer specific, practical strategies.

10 Evidence-Backed Strategies

1. Using Precise Words to Label Emotions

The first step towards self-awareness is recognising one’s emotions, and the science of emotional granularity suggests that a greater level of nuance is better. Emotional granularity is the capacity to clearly and specifically identify similar emotions. Individuals who can identify these emotions have a better ability to cope with stress, and fewer incidences of negative coping responses compared to those who can only identify emotional states in general (Barrett et al., 2001). Keeping a short emotion journal recording what you experienced, when you experienced it, and what triggered it can help you build emotional vocabulary and develop the habit of noticing your emotions over time.

2. Practice Mindfulness

One of the most studied practices to cultivate emotional regulation and self-awareness is mindfulness, or focused, non-judgmental attention to the moment. Mindfulness brings this tiny space between stimulus and response. It is helpful to pay attention to the thought or feeling that arises. Brain imaging studies show that regular mindfulness practice reduces the amygdala’s reactivity to stress and strengthens the prefrontal cortex, which supports rational and measured responses (Hölzel et al., 2011).

Don’t think that one needs to meditate for long periods of time to be mindful. Cultivating our awareness and regulation of emotions can impact our emotions over time, even with just 10 minutes a day. Whether it is on our breath, on our physical sensations, or on the sounds around us. It can show measurable improvements in emotional awareness and regulation (Kabat-Zinn, 1994).

3. Pause Before Reacting

One of the most practically important aspects of EI is emotional regulation, or how emotions impact behaviour. The deliberate pause is one of the most evidence-based strategies: a conscious decision to pause and reflect before responding when there’s an emotional response present. In fact, research consistently shows that creating a short gap between feeling and acting reduces the likelihood of regrettable responses, such as making a sharp remark, making a hasty decision, or sending a message you later regret (Goleman, 1995).

This pause may manifest in several ways: a few deep breaths, a leave-taking from a discussion, or a count to 10 before offering any comment. This physiological response is real: slowing breathing stimulates the vagus nerve, which lowers the level of cortisol and heart rate, and puts the brain back into the space where measured thinking becomes possible (Porges, 2011).

4. Be Empathetic by Taking Perspective

Social and relational EI is grounded in the ability to understand and share another person’s emotional experience (empathy). Research shows that there are two types of empathy: affective (feeling another person’s feelings) and cognitive (understanding another person’s feelings without feeling them). In different contexts, cognitive empathy can be practised by imagining a situation from the other’s point of view before reacting to it. Research has revealed that individuals who habitually do perspective taking demonstrate increased levels of cooperation, decreased prejudice, and increased relationship satisfaction compared to those who do not do perspective taking (Davis, 1983).

5. Listen Actively

Active listening is one of the most underrated social skills and one of the most effective ways to foster trust and emotional relationships. This differs greatly from passive listening, which is listening until the speaker has finished talking before one speaks back or basically listening just to speak back. Active listening is a different process altogether: it is an attention paid completely to the speaker, a mirroring of what is said, an awareness of the emotional information behind the words, and a questioning of what is said, not an offering of advice or rebuttal.

Studies of therapeutic relationships, which are all forms of focused, good interpersonal listening, have consistently shown that individuals feel less distressed, better able to solve problems and closer to those they listen to when they perceive that they are being heard. (Rogers, 1961). Active listening can be developed in the daily environment by eliminating distractions, making eye contact, and avoiding the tendency to think about how to respond rather than listen to what the other person is saying.

6. Openly ask for and take in feedback

Self-awareness is like a blind man with one eye. The Dunning-Kruger effect states that people’s lack of self-knowledge leads to them overestimating their competence, is applicable to emotional intelligence as well (Kruger & Dunning, 1999). Many people who think they are good at reading the emotions of others are seen in an entirely different light. One might believe their capability of understanding others’ emotions (or their emotional intelligence) to be at an above-average level and might overestimate themselves.

One of the quickest ways to discover blind spots is to actively solicit feedback from trusted individuals, such as those who know one best in terms of how one comes across in emotional situations, how one acts when stressed, and how one deals with conflict. Another crucial skill is taking that feedback without getting defensive, and that means that you need to be emotionally regulated and self-accepting, which is part of EI. Feedback is information, and these are skills that can be learned that develop self-awareness and relational trust.

7. Practice Cognitive Reappraisal

Cognitive reappraisal is a way of regulating emotions by altering the way a situation is perceived and thus altering the emotional response, rather than by suppressing the emotion. It is done by finding a different and equally correct way to think about what is happening. For instance, if a presentation was seen as a test of whether an individual was good enough, the level of stress and anxiety will be significantly lower if they see the presentation as an opportunity to share something they know well (Gross, 1998).

Studies repeatedly show that cognitive reappraisal is more effective than trying to “suppress” the emotion, which simply involves trying not to feel it. Because this latter strategy cannot influence the cause of the emotional response. The skill of reappraisal can be developed by being practised in a low-stakes environment. So the more it’s used, the more it’ll happen automatically in a high-stakes environment.

8. Build Self-Compassion

Self-compassion, the caring, kindness and understanding that an individual shows to themself when they are troubled, is an important but often overlooked part of emotional intelligence. The research of psychologist Kristin Neff, with extensive findings and numerous replication studies on self-compassion, indicates that greater self-compassion is associated with decreased anxiety, decreased depression, increased emotional resilience, and an increase in motivation to improve, but without the fear of failure motivating them (Neff, 2011). Those who are too critical of themselves for their emotional missteps are likely to become defensive and shut down, rather than learning from them. Self-compassion fosters psychological protection to look at emotional reactions in a straightforward way, the very thing necessary for continued growth in EI.

9. Improve Emotional Communication

Having high EI is not just about regulating internal emotional states; it’s also about communicating them well to others. Emotional intelligence in communication involves communicating emotions clearly and honestly without blaming, attacking or shutting down. One useful approach to this has been developing what are known as “I statements”. It states one’s experiences in terms of one’s feelings and needs, not through a charge of another person’s behaviour. It keeps the emotional content clean and the relationship intact, while blaming the other person triggers defensiveness. Studies with couples, work teams and therapeutic partners always show that emotional clarity in communication lowers conflict escalation and enhances the quality and longevity of close relationships.

10. Reflect on emotionally charged experiences

One of the most effective long-term approaches to emotional intelligence is to actively seek out opportunities to reflect on one’s emotions following major events, especially challenging or uncomfortable ones. Following conflict, failure or a time of high emotional response, one should give time to ask a series of structured questions like what they felt, what their response was, what they learnt about values and vulnerabilities, etc. This constructs just the sort of introspection that the first model of EI (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) called upon. This habit creates layers of complex, detailed awareness of one’s own emotional patterns over months and years, which forms the basis for all other EI skills.

Conclusion

There is no definitive right or wrong when it comes to emotional intelligence: whether people have it, lack it or develop it. The 10 strategies listed above are not flying dreams. All are research-based, and all focus on a learnable aspect of emotional competence: naming feelings accurately, pausing to react, actively listening, communicating clearly, learning from difficulty, rather than avoiding it.

In this day and age of AI evolving at a rate that none of us can imagine, emotional intelligence, or rather emotions, have taken a backseat in our minds. Whether it is typing a birthday message or writing a letter to the supervisor, everyone has become highly dependent on AI. We have taken the emotions out of ourselves for the sake of so-called efficiency. One might wonder if in an increasingly hyper-connected yet emotionally detached world, we can truly afford to treat EI as a soft skill rather than a critical survival tool.

References +

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