You Can be Great If You Really Want To

Being a relatively new area in psychology, emotional intelligence is still on its way to be fully recognized. It is likely that you may find various definitions of emotional intelligence since many experts are still on the disagreement of what this area of intelligence truly measures. However, it is clear that lately, people have shown signs of great interest on this area of personality since they create fruitful products in them.

Intelligence and cognition are two distinctly separated components of human intelligence. IQ is the parameter of measuring cognitive capacities and is said to be constant at any moment it is measured. It may be improved and maximized though. Nonetheless, it would still be limited by the constant value the Intellectual Quotient presents. Say, if a person has an IQ score of 118, then it is possible that this would remain the same throughout the person’s life. A change of a point or two may occur perhaps due to developmental factors or margin of error given to a specific IQ test.

But the case is different with Emotional Intelligence.

It has been observed how quickly one change from a single emotion to another. But this of course depends on the person subjected to the test or in a given situation. We all react differently to different conditions and there is till no concrete parameter available. Emotions themselves are inconsistent. They largely depend with the person experiencing them.

Due to inconsistencies, no one can still accurately determine how to measure emotional intelligence fully. There is no complete demarcation line between knowledge and intelligence (using the parallelism to describe emotions). Various definitions say the emotional intelligence is dynamic and changes invariably depending on what condition the person is faced to. It therefore, can be increased or decreased, at times it may even be lost. Other experts disagree saying that emotions are stable and therefor, cannot be affected by any condition.

One thing is central to these though, emotions are developed and we are not innately equipped with them at the time of childbirth. Emotions were not even implanted in us during our prenatal stage nor are they recorded in our genes. In a way, they are developed only according to the experiences we had during growth. They only arise when specific stimuli arise.

Emotional intelligence is the capacity of an individual to define his own emotions and to become sensitive to those that he perceives from the environment and the circle of people he is interacting with. It may also be that emotional intelligence is the use of knowledge of these emotions to control situations and create plans and decisions based on the perceived emotions. Other resources would further add that emotional intelligence is part of our personality that dictates us to become more aware of what triggered a specific reaction, both done by the self and people surrounding the “self”. It is also known to be the use of emotions to reason out.

There are too many definitions on what emotional intelligence truly is. So far, we have gathered two constants, emotion and understanding the context and concepts of emotions.

In the end, emotional intelligence is much too focused on one’s understanding and utilization of his or her emotions and in identification of another person’s emotions. These combined will help him determine the proper actions he must make in order to create viable decisions. But emotional intelligence is of course, broader than this interpretation.

Emotional intelligence is one facet of your personality- ‘of your being you’. Experts agree that aside from your intellectual quotient, emotional quotient is a relatively large determinant of how successful you will be in te future. Yes, we make decisions using our intelligence. That is what we use in cranial analysis and for storing information vital to creating the solutions for the conditions we are faced to. For long, many considered the IQ as the only factor that will settle our courses in life.

People in the past have failed to consider emotions as a greater part in creating crucial decisions. They even have regarded emotions as the bane of living life fully. Thinking of them as the irritations to proper thinking.

But times required us to change our views and people were born to redirect our thoughts. One of them is the pioneer on emotional intelligence, psychologist and author Daniel Goleman.

We are at constant interaction with the fellow sitting next to us. In the process of interaction, many skills are needed to determine if it is successful or detrimental to the person involved. We need social skills, careful analysis, skills to communicate ourselves well and the capacity to channel out things into productive mediums of interaction. All these aside, there are other crucial parts of living that we must learn. Failure to do any one of these will create a domino effect on how well we live our lives and in creating harmonious relationships with ourselves and the people that we are closely related to.

Such are the skills covered in our emotional intelligence.

People with high emotional intelligence are seen to standout even when competing with individuals of equally higher IQs. There is no harm in being intelligent though. It is just that in everything, we have to find balance and harmony.

For long, the only determinant of happy living is the ability to think well. But because of the studies Daniel Goleman brought forth and the publication of Emotional Intelligence, the views of people on proper living were radically changed.

Daniel Goleman and his book Emotional Intelligence diverted our focus from higher IQ to higher EQ. Experts have now realized that people who perform well are not only those that are book smarts. In fact, there are numerous cases when the street smarts and emotionally intelligent people reap the gifts of success.

We can determine emotionally intelligent individuals through their display of various behaviors that set them apart from those who have higher intellect but unbalanced emotions.

They are those who have the ability to persevere, empathize and control themselves. They are those who can solve problems using their best judgments and those who have the capacity to interact well with people. They are also those who can control impulses and those who can keep relationships. They appear in many faces and each of them has characteristics different from another.

All these abilities stem down from their capacities to become aware of their own emotions and the emotions that other feel. They have the realization of why and how they react in ways that they do. They, in a way, have higher intrapersonal intelligence as well as social intelligence that are helpful in making judgments and awareness of themselves and the people they are interacting with.

While everybody might not have superior IQs, all men have the equal chances to develop emotional intelligence since this is a very dynamic aspect of personality.

Meeting the higher demands on studying doesn’t end with innate mental intelligence. It also requires the various abilities that a person may posses. For one, emotional intelligence largely contributes to a person’s ability to cope up with the present trends.

While there may not be a direct link between a student’s retention capacity and his emotional intelligence, it is still agreeable that students equipped with the proper level of emotional intelligence are more likely to succeed academically than those who have relatively high IQ yet lack EQ.

Having higher emotional intelligence would provide better coping mechanisms for students. Emotional intelligence is said to be a better determining factor when qualifying the success of a person at any field.

Being emotionally intelligent means that one has the greater capacity to understand himself and the world at which he lives in. It may not be emotional intelligence that would encourage a student to have more focus on the subject matter which in turn would help him retain information. Yet knowing the importance of focus may be learned through having a suitable emotional intelligence.

Emotionally intelligent students are likely to show confidence and self trust. They are also said to have the higher capacity to handle problems more easily and to perform better in terms of academics, given that they are also endowed with an ideal level of intellect. All these, when combined will contribute to a person’s self-belief and confidence that will move him to perform better in class.

We should not focus on the student retention alone. There are various factors that must be considered to help determine the extent of value multiple intelligence has in academic pursuits of students. Say for communication among students and working in groups. Those who have higher emotional intelligence are seen to perform better in these parts since they have developed empathy and a number of other social skills.

Emotionally intelligent students are basically those who have natural tendencies to understand other people’s emotions and to empathize with them, they are also those who know themselves fully and have the capability to influence other people’s emotions and actions. Students equipped with higher emotional intelligence also have the tendency to be a bit more conscious of themselves and others. Thus, they create better relationships with themselves and with those they are closely related to. These among with other issues, when inept may cause obstructions in learning and thus, in retaining students.

Many may view economy as the bane of student retention but what we normally overlook is the incapacities students may present in academic pursuits.

Those who are deficient in emotional intelligence are observed to display behaviors that would link to their exit from higher education, more specifically college. They are those who were not able to tide the increasing pressure of quitting college. There are various stimuli that would eventually lead to the drop out of a student. If we were to sum them up though, we would find that the majority of them are all rooted from lack of emotional intelligence.

Many drop out from college due to failing grades or in the case of ladies, due to pregnancy. If we were to look at this two conditions, it would be easy to conclude that they may actually have stemmed out from deficient EQ.

Therefore, it is not only in personal lives that developing EQ is productive. The cumulative value of which in a four-year institution will be a good determinant of its failure or success.