Over the last decade, the idea of emotional intelligence, or EQ, has become more popular throughout the world. Unfortunately, not many people understand what EQ the term is really about or why it has become so popular over the last several years. Many scientific studies have been conducted over the years and have discovered that emotional intelligence is more important in life than the average intelligence that is measured by the IQ scale. These studies, which have been conducted by both American and European universities, have proven that the common intelligence responses account for less than 20 percent of our achievements and successes in life, while the other 80 percent depends solely on our emotional intelligence.
Everyone, from students to CEOs, is confronted by not only their own emotions but the emotions of everyone around them. How you manage these emotions has a significant impact on how other people perceive us, as well as our effectiveness to get things done. When you can increase your emotional intelligence, you can become better equipped to respond to stressful situations around you with a high degree of maturity. John Mayer, Peter Salovey, and Konstantin Vasily Peterides are renowned researchers that discovered people who have high emotional intelligence tend to become better leaders and are excellent in everything they set out to accomplish.
The first person to use the term emotional intelligence was Wayne Payne in his doctoral thesis, A Study of Emotion: Developing Emotional Intelligence. In his thesis, he compared the IQ and emotional intelligence and determined that EQ was superior because it covers a wide range of faculties and aspects of a person’s behavior. Studying your emotional intelligence will help you to understand the source and impact of your emotions better. This is important because it helps to enhance one’s self-awareness. Studying your EQ will also provide you with the opportunity to understand better the behavior of others and the underlying reasons why they act the way they do.
Emotionally intelligent people can harmoniously reconcile what their mind and reason tell them with the voice of their feelings and emotions. Thanks to this skill, emotionally smart people are self-confident, self-aware, creative, and energetic. They are also much more capable of handling stress and knowing how to get along with others. They are more optimistically approaching their life and don’t fear change. They are the people of success.
