Over the past few years, emotional intelligence (or EQ as it is often referred to) has become one of the most popular trends in psychology. It sounds pretty simple — just be more aware of your own emotions and other people’s emotions.

But what makes this concept so powerful is that it can have profound effects on your life. This includes improving your relationships with others, helping you achieve your career goals, and even enhancing your overall health and wellness.

So how do we improve our emotional intelligence? By practicing certain skills, of course! Here are eight ways to increase your emotional quotient. Read on for some tips!

1. Grasp the importance of relationships

Emotional intelligence isn’t only about understanding your own feelings, but also knowing how to relate to others and use their experiences to inform your own.

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This doesn’t mean acting like a narcissist who thinks everything they say or do is important, but rather being able to identify what matters to someone else and intentionally trying to make them feel good.

2. Use appropriate tone and language

A lot of people struggle with emotional literacy because they don’t know the difference between personal space and invitational speech.

When someone does something that hurts your feelings, take a moment to think before responding. Ask yourself if there was a reason why they did that thing and whether or not it was meant as an insult.

Be authentic

Being authentic is not telling white lies to make yourself look better, nor are they stories that do not hold up under scrutiny.

Being authentic means being you – being your true self with no pretenses. It is knowing what things matter to you, and investing time in those things. It is staying confident in who you are and having faith in yourself.

Emotions arise due to perceptions of situations or people. In other words, how you perceive something makes it important to you or not.

If someone does not like you, chances are they will not feel good about themselves when around you. You can only control how you respond to them, so try to ignore their negative comments unless asked directly.

People are not always aware of why they have emotions. Sometimes we know but cannot explain our feelings. This is okay! We all sometimes need help figuring out what is going on inside us.

Self-awareness is one of the most essential skills for emotional intelligence. Learning how to recognize and understand your own emotions is very helpful.

You may also notice your peers’ emotions and this can tell you something about them. If you ever find yourself feeling hurt, ask yourself what you could have done to cause this emotion.

Then, think back to see if there was any pattern to these causes.

Share your emotions

A major component of emotional intelligence is being able to recognize what you are feeling and sharing that information with people around you. You would not be very successful if someone was crying in front of you, but then later found out why they were crying.

By this we mean telling someone how you feel when you’re angry with them or about something that made you unhappy. If you keep these conversations short, it will help!

Sharing your feelings can be difficult at times because some people may not like to hear them – for example, if they have done wrong. This could make them avoid you which only makes things worse.

Make an effort to bring up these topics so that everyone can talk about how they feel without fear of embarrassment. Also, try talking more than once before thinking there isn’t any response from others.

Make eye contact

Making direct eye contact with someone is one of the most powerful ways to establish trust, connect with them and show interest in their well-being. It’s also a great way to develop rapport and understanding between you. When we look into another person's eyes, our brains produce endorphins — feel good hormones that make us happier!

Making eye contact doesn't necessarily mean looking at their face for very long; it can be a fleeting glimpse or even a half-smile. However, making meaningful connections depends on both people, so don’t shortchange yourself by not investing in your own emotional intelligence.

Surprisingly, there are actually tricks to developing better eye contact. The trick is practicing it, which means spending some time doing it every day. Try establishing an early morning meeting as your first activity, or while talking about something important, try asking if they're listening. If you notice they aren't, ask again later or move onto the next topic.

Be consistent

Consistency is one of the most important things when it comes to emotional intelligence. This means showing up for work, school, relationships consistently every day. Being consistent with how you handle situations will help you in the long run!

Consistency is also about sticking to your commitments. If you say you’ll do something at 9 o’clock today, then must at 9 o’clock everyday, otherwise you lose the chance to prove yourself.

By having consistency in these areas, people will start to rely on what behaviors you produce and repeat them every time. This way, their expectations are met – they know that you will behave in a certain way and that will make them feel comfortable.

Improving emotional quotient takes practice, but if you want to see results, you have to be persistent.

Be realistic

Many people underestimate emotional intelligence (EI) because they believe it is only about understanding your emotions, which can be very helpful in life. But being aware of your own feelings and how you feel about things is just the starting point for having higher levels of EI.

The next step is to relate those feelings to other people and situations so that you can take appropriate action. For example, if someone makes you angry, you should consider whether their actions are justified before getting really upset with them.

If something bad happened, you may need to ask yourself why this occurred so that you can address any underlying issues.

Be honest with your peers

As mentioned earlier, EQ is related to how you perceive and handle relationships. This can be tricky as some people may view you as overly emotional or not able to deal with things well because of that.

So, how do you improve your EQ if this is something you feel you are being judged for? The best way to address this is by being honest about who you are and what you feel.

If someone does something that makes you feel bad, acknowledge it and why you felt that way before moving on.

Be aware that there will always going to be different opinions and beliefs in life so don’t get too attached to one person or thing. That’s just not healthy for you!

And while some people may not agree with your decisions, that doesn’t mean they aren’t good decisions for them. For example, maybe they think you make too many sacrifices or put too much effort into certain things.

But at the end of the day, you’ll have helped them win and that means a lot to them. So, try to be more open-minded and understand other people’s points of views.

Be honest with your peers with

I have read some books that claim that being able to recognize someone’s emotions is a way to improve emotional intelligence.

However, this theory seems very confusing.

It suggests that by knowing what people are feeling you can help them feel better or achieve their goals more effectively.

But how could learning about other people’s feelings be helpful?

By adding more emotion in our lives we will begin to understand why certain things make us feel good or bad. We will learn about ourselves from studying our reactions to different situations.

So while it may sound like a trick to increase emotional quotient, this theory really focuses on making sure we are aware of what is happening around us and are able to relate to others.

Be honest with your coworkers

As mentioned earlier, EQ is related to how you perceive and interact with others. This can be difficult at times because people bring different things from their pasts to work.

If a coworker puts in a lot of effort into something that does not seem appreciated, they may feel discouraged or even hurt. They may keep trying harder without success.

This could also create a sense of burn out or stress for them. If this happens frequently, it may negatively affect their performance and productivity outside of work.

It is important to be aware of these potential pitfalls and do what you can to avoid them. When someone brings up a topic that makes them emotional, take a moment to think about whether it is relevant to your conversation.

If it is, try to contain your emotions and respond with more lighthearted comments instead. “I understand” are the perfect examples of this.

Your colleagues will notice if you are never talking anymore, so make sure to stay within your limits! Also, remember there is no need to say everything you feel in order to maintain an appropriate level of empathy.

Avoid becoming too emotionally invested in conversations, as this could influence how you interpret situations.