How Self-Awareness Is Related To Emotional Intelligence


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Recent research suggests that people who are aware of their emotions are better at controlling them, understanding what elicits an emotion and how they’re feeling, and managing those feelings.
This is referred to as emotional intelligence (or EI for short). Having high levels of EI can have significant benefits in your life, including greater job success, healthier relationships, and more happiness.
It also helps you learn about yourself and others more quickly because you're paying closer attention to what other people mean when they talk or behave.
With all this, there's no reason to feel like you don't know how to manage your own emotions. While it may be challenging at times, knowing yourself well is one of the most important things you can do for your overall health and wellbeing.
There are many strategies you can use to improve your self-awareness, but none of them will make much difference if you aren't able to identify and understand your own thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.
Relationship with self awareness and happiness
There’s a reason that people spend their lives trying to learn how to love themselves. It’s because loving yourself is one of the most important keys to having healthy relationships, and happier times in your life.
If you don’t like what you see when you look in the mirror or you feel bad about yourself for something from past days, then it can be hard to focus on other people and creating intimacy.
And while it may sound silly, feeling good about yourself makes us want to make others feel good as well.
So, learning how to love yourself should be a top priority if you want to enjoy dating and marriage. Not only will this make you happy, but it'll boost your emotional intelligence and help you achieve your goals related to intimacy and relationship building.
Self-compassion comes more naturally to some people than others. But no matter who you are, it's totally achievable! Here are 5 tips to improve your self-compassion.
Self awareness and emotional intelligence
When we talk about emotional intelligence, what we mean is your ability to recognize your emotions and how they affect you and others around you.
This is different than what most people think of when they hear the word “emotion”. They may be familiar with the term emotion as something that is only characterized by feelings.
But there are many other components of emotional intelligence like motivation, empathy, and self-control. It can be difficult to identify which ones you have in control of yourself at any given moment, but being aware of your own emotions can help.
Self-awareness comes more naturally to some people than it does for others. This could be due to genetics or early experiences that shaped who you are now.
It’s important to remember that no one else will ever feel every feeling you experience, so trying to understand your own emotions doesn’t hurt anyone except maybe yourself.
How to improve self awareness
A recent study found that people who are aware of their strengths are more likely to use those strengths in the workplace. Developing your knowledge of yourself is an important part of emotional intelligence.
Research has shown that when you know what makes you happy and what things make you feel good about life, it can help reduce stress.
By learning how much energy you have and where your strengths lie, you can use this information to develop new skills or strengthen existing ones.
You can also learn from your mistakes. When you recognize your weaknesses, you’re less likely to hurt yourself or others by trying to tackle them.
It’s worth noting that while having high levels of emotional intelligence is definitely helpful, being emotionally intelligent isn’t always easy.
At times we may feel overwhelmed, which can prevent us from using our strengths to deal with difficult situations.
Ways to boost your emotional intelligence
A lot of people think that being more socially intelligent means being better at talking about social issues or understanding other people’s emotions.
That is not quite right. Being socially intelligent does include knowing how to identify and understand others' emotions, but it also includes how well you use those feelings to motivate yourself and others.
Social IQ tests focus mostly on this second part of emotional intelligence- motivation. For example, if someone makes you feel bad for putting too much pressure on them to do their job, they might be investing in their own self-confidence instead of giving up.
By using these tactics, they could win over some slack from you after suffering a loss. Or, if someone else has done something good, they might get a little praise for it.
Alternatively, if someone else has got into an argument with someone else, they might try to fix the problem by arguing with the two sides.
Seek feedback
A second important element of emotional intelligence is seeking or accepting feedback about your performance. If you are aware of how you affect others, then you can use that information to improve your interactions with them.
If you have trouble understanding what someone else’s behavior means, ask if you made an assumption about something. Ask if you said or did anything that was not clear.
This comes more naturally for some people than it does for others. But unless you’re willing to be honest with yourself, you will never grow as a person.
So try asking those around you whether they understood you correctly, and see if they give you helpful insights into your behaviors.
You might also want to check in with yourself — were you too focused on what you wanted instead of what other people needed? Were you unaware of certain things because you didn’t pay attention?
By being aware of these things, you’ll find ways to fix them.
Be consistent
Consistency is one of the most important things when it comes to self-awareness. This means not only sticking with regular sessions, but also keeping in touch outside of therapy.
It’s easy to lose motivation towards self-awareness after your first session. But don’t give up!
By staying engaged you increase your chance of finding what works for you. You may need to repeat certain concepts or exercises until they stick, but keep trying!
Consistency is key because it helps ensure that changes have a lasting effect.
On the other hand, if you drop out then you won’t get as much benefit from the next time you visit.
So try to remember all of the steps we talked about above – start by making an appointment, and then prepare for your session by getting some snacks/drinks etc ready.
Once you’re done, come prepared to be challenged! Don’t expect too much unless you’ve worked before though, even just a little bit will help you move forward.
Practice meditation
A defining feature of emotional intelligence is self-awareness, or being conscious of your own emotions. This can be tricky because we tend to think that our feelings are only for us—no one else could possibly know what we’re feeling inside.
But when you have higher levels of emotional intelligence, you understand that everyone around you has their own set of emotions they process information through.
For example, if someone tells you something that makes you feel bad, it’s not just because that person is mean. They may also be trying to get your attention by telling you how unhappy they are with you.
You should probably look into why this person feels hurt, but beyond that there isn’t much you can do. It's best to let them go about their business and hope that things work out in the long run.
On the other hand, if someone laughs hysterically every time you say something funny, it may actually make you feel uncomfortable. You don't want others to think that you're the kind of person who cracks jokes, so you try hard to laugh along even though it's difficult.
This sort of social awareness is another key indicator of high emotional quotient. People with high EQ recognize that people have different experiences and processing styles, and respect these differences.
Journal more
A lot of people talk about how important it is to be aware of your emotions, but few actually do. The reason why is because it can feel uncomfortable when you are trying to pinpoint what emotion you should have.
Having such a high level of emotional intelligence means being able to recognize your own emotions and then figuring out how to better regulate them.
Regulating your emotions includes both having enough control over your emotions, as well as which ones you choose to allow to run away with you.
By being conscious of yourself and your feelings, you will know what controls you need and where you need to make room for new experiences or things that may challenge you.
Journaling is one of the best ways to increase your self-awareness. By writing down thoughts and events in your life, you give yourself a chance to analyze and process what is happening at the time.
You also get a chance to look back on past events and see if there were any patterns or clues to help explain your current state of mind.