The Importance of Emotional Intelligence

The ability to control ones emotions is typically disregarded outside of psychological terms in a professional setting. In fact, very few people seem to consider how well they recognize and maintain their own emotions. The ability to do so is called emotional intelligence, which, as defined professionally, is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It can be broken down into three skills, which are emotional awareness; the ability to harness and apply emotions to situations and problem-solving; and the ability to manage emotions, both of oneself and of others.Emotional awareness is a crucial skill to life for any person. This particular skill includes the ability to read the mood and situation of others, and utilizing empathy to relate to and help those who may need it. The ability of emotional awareness makes you come off to others as more reliable, and more in control of yourself. Both of these are especially important, because they help you stand out against the crowd and be a better person. However, it is hard to help others without helping yourself first. Thus, self-awareness is the first and most important part to ones emotional intelligence, as you cant truly be emotionally intelligent if you cant even read yourself. It is also important to be aware of your emotions so you know how to control them. Of course, everyone has their emotions go out of control at some point or another, and its perfectly common, but what truly matters is that you try to control yourself in the future. Self-improvement is a valuable life skill for anyone, and has little to no excuses for ignoring.Once you are able to be aware of your own emotions, you can use this skill to harness them and apply them to life involving both yourself and others. Using your own experiences is a simple way to relate to and help with other peoples problems, if they allow you to. This really falls into being able to control your emotions, but applying them to real-life problems of your own as well as others is still relatively important. Problem-solving is a valuable skill, and even more valuable when you know how to do it correctly. Managing emotions is slightly different from harnessing them. This may involve taking action to help others with their emotions, beyond applying yourself and problem-solving. Rather than solving the problem at hand, it focuses on cheering up or calming down yourself or the person so that you or they may easier solve the problem. This is the part of emotional intelligence that focuses on ?turning down the heat, to speak idiomatically.Ultimately, emotional intelligence makes one a better citizen because it causes you to be a more caring person, as well as more approachable. It could be described as a way to help the community in a non-tangible way. Not everyone has the ability to be aware of, harness, and manage their own emotions, and are often grateful to have assistance from someone who knows what theyre doing. Helping others goes beyond giving them material goods and assistance with chores. While those are important and certainly not a bad thing, when you help others with their emotions, they also learn to grow their own emotional intelligence. It could very well start a chain reaction throughout a community of people that leads to a happier environment for everyone.Overall, emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to be aware of, harness, and manage the emotions of yourself as well as those around you. While it is important to help others, it is also important to help yourself before getting too invested in helping others. It is possible to start a chain reaction by helping others with their own emotional intelligence, and this leads to a better community, and making you a better citizen to said community.

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