Emotional Intelligence Builds Resilience by Cindy Stradling CSP, CPC

Over the past weeks, I’ve talked a lot about the importance of resilience, particularly in terms of helping you to persevere in reaching goals. Over the next few weeks, I will focus more on how to build resilience, so that life’s curveballs don’t knock you down. We will examine the traits that help increase a person’s resilience.

The first trait that is key in resilience is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to emotions: both your own emotions and those of other people. Emotional intelligence is a key factor for success in many areas, because emotionally intelligent people are better able to relate to others.

Emotionally intelligent people are more resilient for three primary reasons. The first is that they are more in tune with their own emotions, including having the ability to understand when their emotions are running high and might be getting the better of them. These people clearly understand that their emotional reactions are often temporary, making them better able to sleep on a problem and approach with a fresh head the next day.

Emotionally intelligent people are also more in tune with the emotions of others. They are less likely to be devastated by someone who is overreacting, because they recognize the reaction for its real merit. Emotionally intelligent people don’t make rash decisions in the heat of the moment, and they don’t allow those around them to do so either. These people are able to say, “Let’s revisit this tomorrow”, to avoid making a poor decision.

Finally, emotionally intelligent people are often better at hiring the right people for the job. They recognize traits like loyalty, rational decision making ability and fairness in others, along with being able to assess another person’s intellect and concrete skills. Emotionally intelligent people are more likely to surround themselves with the right people to create success.

If you want to improve your emotional intelligence, ask yourself a few questions:

• How do I react to stressful situations? Am I cool headed or do I blow up?

• How do I react to other people? Do I judge before knowing the facts? Am I empathetic?

• Do I take responsibility for my actions? Am I comfortable with admitting fault and apologizing when I’ve wronged someone?

Once you answer these questions honestly, you may find some areas where you could increase your emotional intelligence by improving how you interact with others. As you become more emotionally aware, you may find that your new found awareness not only improves how you deal with others, but makes you more resilient in dealing with the issues you face in reaching your goals.