Although conventional measures of intelligence might help to determine whether a person is smart and grasps things easily, they still can’t help you to predict whether that person is going to be successful and happy in their life. They can’t help you to predict whether that person will advance in their career. For that, you also need to think about emotional intelligence.
When it comes to dealing with people, whether that person is an employee or a supervisor, emotional intelligence comes into play. You need to understand how that person’s emotions are affecting the conversation at hand. And you also need to be aware of how your own emotions are doing the same. In cases such as these, IQ isn’t going to help you out. You need emotional intelligence instead.
Emotional Intelligence Helps You to Keep Going
No matter how many great people you talk to, they always have one thing to say which contributed to their happiness: they picked themselves up and kept going no matter what happened.
Everyone has to go through ups and downs in their lives and in business. Marriages break up. Business plans are unsuccessful. You may hire someone new and they may quit. You might start a business several times and still be unsuccessful.
But the one thing that great people do is that they don’t let these things affect them. They keep their goal in mind and they keep going.
Emotional Intelligence and Learning to Motivate Yourself
Picking yourself up when you’re down is an important component of emotional intelligence. After all, this isn’t always easy to do. You’re going to feel low and depressed when bad things happen. How do you motivate yourself again? How do you tell yourself that it’s ok and keep going?
You have to develop a method of self-motivation which works for you. You can either take some time off and do something fun, returning to work when you feel refreshed. Or you can plough through it—keep working despite your negative feelings. Any method you use is ok, as long as you don’t give up entirely.
