Over the past few years, emotional intelligence (or EQ for short) has become one of the most popular skills people have to learn. It can help you in your career, love life, and self-development goals like staying healthy or achieving weight loss.

With all this attention being paid to empathizing and controlling your emotions, many have made the conclusion that having higher levels of EQ is an excellent thing.

After all, why would someone who cannot control his or her own feelings be able to perform well at work, with friends, or even while trying to achieve their personal goals?

Luckily, there are some very clear benefits to high EQ. And although it may sound strange, we will discuss two important reasons that improving your EQ is actually impossible.

This article will talk about these two things – how emotionally intelligent individuals differ from others and why developing your empathy is the wrong way to improve your EQ. So get ready! Let’s go through them together.

Want to 10x your business's website traffic?

Look no further! Juice.ai puts your business in charge of its content strategy and gets you targeted clicks to your website. Check it out now!

Disclaimer: The content in this article will focus more on the negative effects of low emotional intelligence, but I wanted to include a little push towards helping people find ways to increase theirs as well. That said, let’s dive into our topic and see what we can cover!

Emotional Quotient - What Is It?

Before discussing the differences between emotional quotients, we should first define what emotional intelligence really is.

Practice self-reflecting

One of the most important things that emotional intelligence can help you do is to take some time to look at yourself.

This is not only helpful for your personal life, but also as a professional person. If you are looking into another person’s face, then trying to figure out what makes them feel relaxed or happy, it could help you predict how they will respond in a situation.

If you know why someone else gets nervous sometimes, you may be able to avoid making them more stressed out.

Also, if you are ever confronted with something that seems difficult for you, taking some time to think about why this is happening and what you can do to reduce its intensity would be very useful.

Self-reflection helps us understand ourselves better, which is a key part of improving our emotional well-being.

Be authentic

Being emotionally intelligent means being aware of your emotions and what is causing them. You’d like to think that people who call themselves “emotionally intelligent” are just naturally good at recognizing, understanding and managing their own feelings, but this isn’t always the case.

Some people seem to have an innate ability to identify and understand their emotional states more quickly than others. This may be because they’ve experienced similar situations before and learned from them or because they’re born with some sort of internal software that helps them process emotion.

It’s also worth noting that while everyone has a limited amount of emotional intelligence, some people appear to use it more effectively than others do. We all have certain strengths and weaknesses when it comes to dealing with our own emotions.

Being emotionally intelligent doesn’t make someone feel better about themselves, nor does it mean that people will perceive them as a self-confident person – it only makes them feel even lonelier sometimes. Because we all deal with grief in our lives differently, there’s no one way to be emotionally intelligent.

But once you get into the habit of acknowledging and naming your own thoughts, feelings and reactions, you can begin to work towards developing yourself as a person whose emotional skills other people admire.

Communicate more effectively

A lot of people think that emotional intelligence is only about feeling emotions, but it goes much deeper than that. It also includes knowing what to do with those feelings once they arise.

This can be harder for some people because they were never taught how to deal with their own emotions. They may have been ostracized or even punished in school for showing emotion.

So they don’t know how to process them properly. Or worse, they’re not aware that they’re even experiencing an emotion until it’s too late.

When this happens, they might say or do things they later regret. This could hurt someone else close to you, which is no way to live. You need to understand your own emotions so you can recognize when something's wrong and find ways to fix it. - Nia Vardalos

Running into problems with relationships and work can sometimes be due to lack of empathy. People who are less emotionally intelligent often feel justified in treating others poorly because they didn’t feel anything for them before.

They may forget important dates or break promises because they weren't bothered when earlier ones were kept or broken.

Even if he or she doesn't know it, there may be someone around whom they've got secrets because they're afraid of being honest. All these little betrayals add up and cost someone else dearly.

Learn to be assertive

Being able to control your emotions is an important part of emotional intelligence. It’s not about being always calm, however; it’s about knowing when it's okay to get angry or frustrated, and how to back down from a disagreement if you are both feeling strong.

It can help in work situations by showing respect for others and helping them feel that they are understood and their points have been heard. In relationships, it means staying focused on what makes you connect with each other rather than arguing over things that don't matter anymore.

Being able to recognize your own feelings and those of people around you and learning how to manage them is a key part of self-awareness.

Pick your friends wisely

We’ve talked before about how important it is to have emotional intelligence (EI) in our lives, but what most of us don’t realize is that having low EI can actually hurt us.

We all have limited resources of emotional energy, and using those resources to work on relationships isn’t good if you’re trying to destroy them.

So, while too much empathy could potentially help you be more sympathetic towards others, having no sense of empathy at all can damage you deeply.

Without understanding other people’s emotions, you won’t know when they are telling you something is wrong or why they aren’t communicating with you. You’ll feel like things are going wrong for no reason, and that can lead to lots of broken hearts and lost friendships.

There was a study done where participants were asked to read a short article about someone who had either been successful or unsuccessful with developing their career. They also described whether the person was emotionally stable or not, and whether they knew him/her well.

The researchers found that being aware of an individual’s emotion regulation skills makes it easier to identify potential warning signs such as stress, anger, or frustration.

By doing so, you can take steps to avoid damaging the relationship by saying goodbye or avoiding them altogether.

Do not get into too many arguments

Overcoming our insecurities takes work, but it is worth it. When we try to defend ourselves or put up more barriers to protect us from hurt, we are actually protecting ourselves from something much bigger- emotional pain.

Emotions come with feelings, so trying to suppress, ignore, or deny your emotions will only make them stronger.

By learning how to manage your emotions you will be better able to regulate your own behavior and help keep yourself calm and relaxed. This can also help you succeed in career and personal life.

In fact, studies show that people who use strategies to improve their emotional intelligence are more likely to earn higher paychecks and achieve other goals such as marrying well.

Be a good listener

Being a good listener is one of the most important skills to have in this era of technology-driven communication. If you spend time with people, listening to them and what they are talking about, you will learn a lot about them!

People often feel like they have nothing to say after someone has already said their piece, but being a good listener means investing time in exploring how others’ experiences relate to your own.

This is particularly helpful when it comes to relationships because no matter who you are, there will be times where you need help understanding something or asking questions that make sense to you.

By having these skills, you will realize the importance of giving other people the opportunity to talk about themselves and then responding according to what makes the most sense to you.

You can also use your listening skills to understand why some things may not seem logical to you. That way, you won’t get too frustrated and distracted by false assumptions.

Teach others

One of the biggest benefits that emotional intelligence has is its ability to teach you new skills or improve old ones. This effect comes not only from practicing it yourself, but also helping other people develop their EQs.

This can be done through teaching someone how to manage their emotions, giving them tips for improving their own EQ, or just being a good listener.

Your colleagues may feel overwhelmed by the amount of stress in the workplace, so they could use some help lowering these pressures. A well-trained individual could help them do this.

If there are ever any issues with the job, such as lack of promotions or changes to responsibilities, your colleague might need help managing his/her feelings.

Their superiors could look into whether they’re able to handle higher workloads or shifts, if they’re able to cope with change, etc. All of these things play an important part in succeeding in one's career.

You can also find opportunities to hone your EI by volunteering. Not only does doing work proactively make you happy, it helps you connect with others and understand what makes them happier or less happy.

Emotions come in different forms, which means learning about various types can help you relate to others more effectively. For example, knowing why something made someone else cry can help you identify potential problems at home or work.