Improving Emotional Intelligence Part 1: Emotions vs Behavior
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This week's #CultureDrop is the first of a series that we'll be sprinkling in on how to become more emotionally intelligent.
One vital element to emotional intelligence is the difference between emotions and behavior, and how much feelings control how you show up.
Leveling up EQ.
Emotional intelligence is so critical to your success as a human and in your relationships whether at work, in life, as a leader, coworker, partner, friend, etc.
There are basically five buckets, or categories, of emotional intelligence — self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, motivation, and social skills/relationship building.
This week’s focus in on self-regulation and self awareness.
The relationship between emotions and behaviors.
I’ll start with a clear example: frustration is an emotion. But speaking angrily, raising your voice, scowling, insulting someone, using aggressive body language — these are all behaviors. The difference between what you feel and how you act is so important to have a solid handle on.
You don’t always have control over what emotions you feel, but you do have control over your behavior. Feelings aren’t the truth: they’re not good or bad, they’re just a natural part of the human experience. Many things in your life are going to cause you a myriad of big and little feelings.
Often, the emotions that you experience and way that you’re feeling isn’t something that you’ve actively and intentionally chosen. However, you can choose how you behave in response to those emotions.
An example of emotional regulation.
Say you’re in a conversation with someone that’s escalating and maybe starting to turn into an argument or get emotionally heated, and you’re experiencing negative emotions.
The challenge and practice here (because it takes practice to improve your EQ) is in the moment is to take a mental step back and recognize that your emotions are getting stronger and veering into negative territory. The key move in this moment is to become aware of how those emotions are contributing to your behavior, and take back the wheel instead of letting your emotions drive you.
Catch yourself when you notice things like:
Your body language or facial expressions are becoming negative or aggressive.
You are raising your voice or using an angry tone.
If you’re using hurtful, mean language like insulting the other person or being overly sarcastic or rude, etc.
If you do this, you can start to become more self-aware of how your feelings might be controlling your actions, rather than you being the one in control of your behavior. This is easier said than done, but awareness and practice is how you get better and learn to self-regulate.
Use words, not behavior to express yourself.
For people who don’t have a high EQ or access to some simple tools to guide them, it can be really hard to navigate stress or static or conflict with other people. Many people resort to yelling or insulting others, for example, when faced with conflict because it’s the only way that they know how to communicate to someone else that they are feeling angry or not listened to.
Having a couple tricks or tips in your back pocket is so useful to be able to remain in control of your emotional behavior, even if your feelings are boiling and bubbling over.
Here are a few really helpful ways to regulate your emotions and be able to use words instead of behavior to communicate effectively. Very useful in those moments in order to avoid dramatic, unhealthy situations and conflict:
“On a scale of 1 to 10, this is an 8 or 9 for me in terms of how upset or fired up I am about it.” This severity scale is one of my favorite hacks for this, here is a link to a video and blog post about it.
“I’m feeling really frustrated right now, and I want to remain calm so we can navigate this and sort things out.”
“I’m feeling really worked up. Can we pause this conversation and take a break for a bit?”
There’s plenty of things you can say in the moment that communicate how you’re feeling without making the conversation more stressful and heated. It’s okay and healthy to express your emotions using words, instead of using behaviors to communicate those feelings.
Final thoughts
Having control over your emotional behavior in times of big emotions is a super power. It takes practice and intention and is not always easy, but once you have the skill and presence of mind to do that in any situation, you will find so many interactions much easier to navigate.
Make it a goal to become skilled at remaining levelheaded in an emotionally heated situation. Being in charge of how you behave and treat others, regardless of your emotions is a huge level up for your self awareness and emotional regulation.
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This article was created by Galen Emanuele for the #culturedrop. Free leadership and team culture content in less than 5 minutes a week. Check out the rest of this month's content and subscribe to the Culture Drop at https://bit.ly/culturedrop