Achieving Personal and Professional Success | Learn How to Navigate Emotional Intelligence

Achieving personal and professional success requires dedication to improving both your hard and soft skills. Many people think of soft skills as things that are nice to have, but if you want personal and professional growth, the way you connect with other people makes a difference. From clients to colleagues, friends to family, your relationships have a big impact on your ability to get ahead. That is because success is not created alone. The better you are at working with others, the more successful you will be, which is why learning how to navigate and improve your emotional intelligence (EI) is so important.  

What are the types of emotional intelligence?

Most people think that developing your EI is primarily focused on understanding other people, but that is not true. EI is your ability to manage your emotions, as well as that of other people. If you are not able to work through your own emotions in an effective way, it will be difficult to deal with conflict, maintain close connections, make good decisions, recover from failure, and help others do so as well. This is why your personal and professional growth is dependant on your ability to understand yourself and where you need to grow, as well as the gaps you might have within the different types of emotional intelligence. 

Self awareness is the first type of emotional intelligence and the place we all have to start our journey into personal and professional growth. In emotional situations, identifying the exact emotion you are feeling, will help you build a strategy to work through it in a productive way. As you become more self aware and gain greater understanding of your emotional needs, you will increase your levels of fulfillment in life, and you will also improve your ability to lead others toward greater emotional awareness.  

Self management of your emotions hinges on understanding what you are feeling and then knowing the best approach to navigate it. For example, when feeling down, some people need time in meditation or prayer, others will need to exercise to change their emotional state, and yet others will prefer to spend time with people to boost their mood. Each one of us has a different go-to method and knowing yours is the key to better self management. 

Another step to self management is being proactive with your emotional health, which will increase your emotional bandwidth. The larger the bandwidth is, the easier it is to stay in control of your emotions. Let me give you an example to help illustrate the point. When you wake up feeling like it’s a bad day and you get cut off in traffic, how do you react? But when you wake up and feel like it’s a great day and the same thing happens, it’s typically a very different situation. Excellent self management will require keeping your emotional bandwidth high by doing the things that make you feel good. Self care is a key factor in this. 

Motivation is the next type of emotional intelligence and there are many types of it to explore. There is intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, achievement and incentive motivation, and toward and away motivation, just to name a few. This is an area that will require some research to help you understand what motivates you most, what demotivates you, what you need to do to maintain your motivation, and how those factors differ for other people. The better understanding you have of the different types of motivation, the easier it will be to inspire yourself and the people around you to take action, making you a more effective leader and more successful too.

Empathy is a much bigger factor for success than many realize. Empathy helps you think about things from another person’s perspective, which helps you relate to them in a better way, enhancing your relationships because of that deeper connection. 

That kind of connection can also improve your communication skills because you have a better understanding of what another person is feeling or going through, allowing you to more effectively navigate and adapt within the conversation to get better outcomes. And that leads us to the final type of EI….

Social skills are a huge part of creating personal and professional success. When you think about people you admire or some of the most charismatic people in the world, they have excellent social skills. They can read body language, adapt their communication style and build trust quickly. These skills help them build strong connections, which makes them great leaders. This is why the consistent development of your social skills should always be part of your personal and professional growth plans.

What are 3 ways to manage your emotions?

When your emotions are high, your ability to make good decisions is low. You may have heard me say, “High emotions…create low intelligence!” That applies to moments of extreme happiness, as well as anger, overwhelm or sadness. This is why learning how to manage and regulate your emotions is important for your success. The better your ability to make good decisions in any given moment, the more successful you will be. 

Each person will be very different in the way they manage their emotions, because each one of us has very different life experiences, however, these 3 ways to manage your emotions are a great place to start to learn what works best for you.

1. Meditation is an ancient practice that stills the mind, improving the ability to manage emotions. What many people don’t know is that there are different types of meditation. Moving meditation, progressive relaxation meditation and mindfulness meditation are just a few to explore.
2. Journaling is another great way to deal with your emotions because it gets it out of your head and onto paper. That can help you prioritize your concerns, identify negative thoughts, and help you recognize your triggers, which will help you build a better management strategy for your emotions. 
3. Self care, as we discussed above, is a key factor for managing your emotions. The better you feel, the easier it is to deal with difficulties that might come your way. Every day it’s important to do things that make you feel good. Self care doesn’t have to be hugely time consuming. Listening to your favorite song, taking a few minutes in gratitude or simply reveling in the taste of your first sip of your morning beverage are all ways to boost your mood. The more you can do this throughout the day, the easier it will be to regulate your emotions.

Emotional intelligence is an area of lifetime learning. The things we discussed here are just the tip of the iceberg. What you will find, as you explore and develop your EI, is that you will build better connections, your ability to collaborate will expand and your opportunities will grow – which is a direct path for achieving personal and professional success. 

Another great way to develop yourself and your emotional intelligence is to learn from the experiences of others. That is why in Think and Grow Rich – Success and Something Greater, Greg Reid and I sought out multi-millionaires and asked them to share the Magic Keys to their success and legacy. Before reaching the last page of this book, you will be more self-confident, more energized, more focused, ready to ask the right questions, and most importantly, you will be ready to take action, which will help you realize your personal and professional success. CLICK HERE to get your copy now!  I will personally autograph it for you.