Emotional intelligence (EI), or emotional quotient (EQ), is your ability to recognise, understand, manage, and effectively use your emotions, as well as the emotions of others.

I think it’s one of the most important types of human intelligence when it comes to happiness.

There are five components to it:

1. Self-awareness: The ability to recognise and understand your own emotions, including their causes and effects. It involves being in touch with your feelings and having insight into your emotional state.
2. Self-regulation: The capacity to manage and control your own emotions, including the ability to stay calm under pressure, resist impulsive reactions, and adapt to changing circumstances. Self-regulation also involves the ability to redirect negative emotions in a constructive way.
3. Motivation: A strong intrinsic drive to achieve personal and professional goals. This includes being able to set and work towards meaningful objectives, as well as persevering when things get difficult.
4. Empathy: The ability to recognise and understand the emotions and perspectives of others. Empathetic individuals can put themselves in someone else’s shoes and respond to their emotions with sensitivity.
5. Social skills: Proficiency in building and maintaining positive relationships, effective communication, and resolving conflicts. Socially skilled individuals can navigate social situations with ease and are skilled at working with others to achieve common goals.

I think we all have varying levels of EQ across these and I believe we can improve anything through purposeful practice. So like the best behaviors of successful people (of which some of the above feature), I deliberately practice EQ for periods of time. My success varies depending on the situation…but I remind myself that self-mastery is never complete!