Expert shares three realistic ways you can actually increase your emotional intelligence

Most of us understand the concept of measuring intelligence through testing like IQ exams. What are our cognitive abilities? How well do we retain information? But the idea of measuring emotional intelligence—now that's a different story.

On their website, Yale University says motional intelligence (EQ or EI) is "what gives us the ability to read our instinctive feelings and those of others. It also allows us to understand and label emotions as well as express and regulate them," according to Marc Brackett, Ph.D., founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.

The term "emotional intelligence" has become a bit of a buzzword in the last three decades. This is because, even though the idea has been around for a while, it was made quite popular in the mid-90s by psychologist Daniel Goleman in a book called Emotional Intelligence – Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

So the question is: how can we learn to implement the traits of highly emotionally intelligent people? Goleman himself shares the tips and tricks that any of us can learn on YouTube's Big Think channel.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com, BigThink Channel

He explains that one's EQ is "a combination of self-awareness, managing your emotions well, empathy, tuning into other people, and putting that all together to have harmonious or effective relationships."

Broken down into four domains—"self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management,"—Goleman begins with the broader strokes:

1. Self-Awareness

Just the concept of self-awareness alone, he notes, has been around for centuries. He specifically quotes the famous Socrates notion of "Know thyself," which truly is the crux of the idea. "Self-awareness means you know what you're feeling, you know how it shapes your perceptions and your thoughts and impulses to act," says Goleman.

2. Self-Management

Goleman asks, "When you're upset, when you're angry, when you're anxious, can you manage your emotions? Can you keep them from disrupting your focus on what you have to do right now?"

3. Social Awareness

How empathetic are you? "You not only know how a person thinks and how they feel–you care about them. This is what you want in your parents. This is what you want in your spouse." (He goes on to list "lover, friend, teacher, doctor, leaders of any kind.")

4. Relationship Management

This refers to how well you can handle conflicts with others. He asks, "Are you being an effective communicator?" The good news, Goleman tells us, is that EQ is "learned and learnable at any point in life."

A woman leans in to listen. Giphy, Interested Go On, Schitt's Creek

1) Learn to listen

We so often, Goleman explains, "think about what we want to say and don't really listen to the other person. We cut them off. We interrupt." But if you want to increase your EQ points, "this is the basis of empathy–listening well."

"So if you want to learn to be better at empathy, you might say, 'My habit is cutting people off and interrupting. I'm gonna make the effort to do it differently. I'm gonna listen to the person out. Say what I think they mean and THEN say what I think.'"

Someone may ask how that could be done? Goleman tells us our brains can actually change in terms of neuroplasticity, after repeated behaviors. Change the behavior, change the mind.

"That’s what it’s like to change a habit. So with listening, you have to, at first make an intentional effort. It might feel uncomfortable. But as you persist, it gets more and more comfortable until finally, it’s an automatic habit that will stay with you for years."

2) Look to leaders you admire and mimic them

An interesting question Goleman likes asking his readers and audiences is, "Tell me about a leader you've loved and a leader you hate, and tell me one quality that makes a leader so good or so bad." He goes on to explain the leader you love most likely is high in emotional intelligence. "Research at the Yale School of Management has found that emotions are contagious, and they’re most contagious from the leader outward. The leader is most often the center of strong emotions, either negative or positive."

Part of what makes a great leader is the regulation of those emotions. Once you start regulating your emotions and reactivity, you can emulate the leaders you find inspiring.

On the @riseandconquer Instagram page, they note that having emotional intelligence isn't akin to "being Zen" all the time. "It's how you respond."

3) Reach out to people with kindness. It will be contagious.

Make People feel loved written on a wall Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Goleman tells an inspiring story about a bus ride he once took in Manhattan wherein the bus driver was above and beyond friendly. People, he said, would arrive grumpily "in their own bubble" and seemingly leave in a better mood.

"Years later, I saw an article in The New York Times about that bus driver. His name, it turned out, was Govan Brown. He had fans. People would wait for his bus. He got three thousand letters saying what a great bus driver he was, not one complaint....He had a purpose that was far greater than that of the New York Transit Authority, which is something like getting as many people to where they want to go on time as we can. He had a splendid sense of what he was doing. It gave a greater meaning to what he did, and he did it superbly."

Any of us can choose to do this at any time. Again, the more we change our behavior, the more our thoughts will change leading to, you guessed it, a higher EQ.

Goleman reiterates, "I’ve always felt that the more emotional intelligence in society, the better. I think we would have parents who are more effective in raising kids, who are kinder. We’d have more compassion for each other in our interactions with friends and loved ones as well as with strangers. I think we would care more about the environment, which is why I’ve been happy to be a kind of evangelist for emotional intelligence, if you will. I’m not the originator of the phrase. I think I made it more famous.

I just think it would make a better world."