What Do We Mean by Emotional Intelligence?

There’s a term that get’s thrown around a lot these days. When you hear it, what comes to mind? How would you explain it to someone?

This is an important question to get to the bottom of. Why? Because as much as 70% of what makes you successful in working through your challenges and attaining your goals will depend on it. The other 30% is roughly divided equally between your knowledge and your skills. Emotional Intelligence is about being able to consistently put into practice what you know is best for you.

So, while working with someone is about acquiring new knowledge and skills, there’s a bigger piece that needs to be developed – and that is emotional intelligence.

Being emotionally intelligent is more than just having our emotions under control – although that is part of it. The bigger part of it is learning how to really listen to what our emotions are trying to tell us. Emotions are the inputs our brains use to help us decide what is in fact best in any given situation. Emotional intelligence helps to respond to a challenge rather than react to it. Emotional intelligence helps to make challenging decisions with confidence. Emotional intelligence helps us be true to ourselves in a way we would recognize as “healthy”.

And that is a great move towards lasting hope and healing.

What do you think?