Practical Ways To Develop Emotional Intelligence: Motivation, Empathy And Social Skills

Hello there, and compliments of the season to you.

I hope you’re enjoying the joy, warmth and excitement this season brings.

In seasons like this, I feel that the most important thing is not just food or drink but family and friends, basking in their warmth and being alive and healthy to keep pursuing your dreams and journeying towards your destiny and being social is one of the most important ways to develop emotional intelligence as we will be seeing in this article.

We’ve been discussing emotional intelligence for a couple of weeks, and many people have shown remarkable interest in the desire to develop emotional intelligence. It shows you that sometimes what people need is either a reminder to go the right part or a nudge and a bit of inspiration with some motivation.

Today’s edition will be the final article in this long series (next week’s edition will be the concluding part), and we’re looking at the practical ways to develop motivation, empathy and social skills, the other components of emotional intelligence.

Last week, we explored self-awareness and self-regulation, and for you to understand this article better, you need to read previous articles.

Developing Motivation Or Self-motivation

What are your motivations? Why do you do what you do? We all have motivations, that inner push making us keep the grind.

If you’ve discovered yours, congratulations; however, I would like you to know that your motivation needs to be healthy. There are people who are driven by unhealthy motivations.

The reason(s) behind their hustle is unhealthy, and it’s not safe to be driven by unhealthy motivations. You’ll hurt yourself and those around you in the long run.

Your motivation needs to be deep enough to stand the test of time. One of the most common reasons people give up is that they don’t have enough motivation.

Our motivation is that energy that makes us protect our commitment to our goals and our readiness and eagerness to chase opportunities to grow and become better in whatever we do.

Self-motivated individuals have a better understanding of their WHY, and this understanding brings a form of balance and maturity to how they respond and react to their own emotions and those of other people.

Here are some practical steps that can help you develop motivation.

• Find Your Personal Goals: Where do you see yourself in a year, two, three, five, ten and twenty? What do you want to become? Be very specific. Journaling comes in handy here. Write it down and ensure it’s achievable and very realistic (don’t plan to own a mansion on the moon next to Elon Musk in 20 years). You must have a vision for yourself. Now, this is about you alone and not about your family, business or any external party; it’s about you. Got it?

• Maintain An Optimistic Mindset: In the journey towards becoming an emotionally healthy person, you must embrace optimism wholeheartedly. When life throws rocks at you, don’t sit on the dust and cry. Use those rocks to build steps and walls. Optimism strives to see the best in every situation, no matter how sour, hard or bad. In addition, surround yourself with the right kind of people—those who will help you remain positive. Avoid people and relationships that make you tilt towards pessimism and being negative.

• Be Dedicated To A Life Of Learning: Learning is the most effective practical method to keep your motivation alive and fresh. Pursue it, and keep learning. There’s always something new to learn. People who are dedicated to learning understand that sometimes, in order to learn something new, they have to jump out of their comfort zones. There are certain lessons in life that will never crawl to you on your soft bed; you’ll have to run out in the rain, under the sun, to find them. Don’t be afraid to take on opportunities that make you uncomfortable. In so doing, you are toughening yourself and becoming a stronger person with solid motivation.

• Self-care Is Always Important: If you’ve been following, you’ll have discovered that the theme of self-care constantly reoccurs because self-care is an essential aspect of overall mental and physical health. If you’re trying to pursue optimal mental well-being and neglect self-care, you’re likened to a child trying to use a toy truck to excavate a real building site—it won’t work. Keeping your body and mind sound is very important when it comes to staying healthy.

Let’s move on and talk about how to develop empathy, another vital component of emotional intelligence.

How To Develop Empathy

Empathy is part of the new leadership golds. We’re in the leadership era where leaders are not just about how they feel but also how those they lead feel.

It’s more of self-interest than self-centredness. To be a strong leader, you must sharpen your empathy skills. It helps you identify the kinds of emotions people around you are expressing. It enables you to relate with them at their emotional frequency.

Empathy is all about being compassionate towards others. “Walking a mile in their shoes”, seeing the world from their perspective.

It helps shape your judgement of others and makes you aware of each person’s struggle to improve.

Empathy isn’t an inborn ability. We all need to learn how to be empathetic, and it’s a lifelong endeavour.

Here are ways you can become more empathetic:

• Be Calm And Listen More: You must understand that having a hot head or short temper isn’t a sign of strong leadership. Leaders who always have outbursts of emotions have low EQ and will not go far with that kind of behaviour. Learn to be calm and listen more. When people speak or behave, they are letting out small doses of what is in their souls and, along with it, small tints of emotions. It takes someone who is calm and knows the importance of listening to be able to perceive the emotion and react accordingly. In understanding their emotions, you can easily empathise with them.

• Master The Art Of Understanding Perspectives: We talked about perspective when we were looking at self-awareness and self-regulation. Great leaders know that there are diverse perspectives to one situation. How you see and perceive the situation or circumstance is very different from how the other person sees it. Perspectives matter. Sometimes, there may not even be a wrong or right; it’s just perspective, and in the quest to grow empathy, we need to understand the perspective of others and not allow our own perspectives to cast a shadow of bias over our judgements of other people.

• Have An Open Mind To People: If you lock yourself away from people, you’ll never be able to interact with them. It’s vital that you open your mind to people; this is the only way you can share their emotions. I see being empathetic as sharing a portion of the emotions of others, and the only way you can share in their emotions is if you are genuinely open to them. And people know when you’re open to them. Don’t pretend or wear sheep’s clothing. Let it come from a place of understanding, maturity, and curiosity.

Developing Social Skills

There’s no way you can be completely emotionally intelligent if you are emotionally isolated socially.

Through our social interactions, we are exposed to the emotions of others, learn their feelings and see how their emotions influence us.

If you’re alone in your cave like a hermit, you will never be able to develop strong social skills that translate to being healthy in your mind.

You need to learn how to be social, how to mingle with people and genuinely enjoy their company—only weird folks hide in caves and rocks. You’re not weird.

You learn how to effectively communicate by being social, meeting people, and building relationships.

Here are some practical steps you can take to develop good social skills.

• Realise That You Are A Social Being: You’re naturally made to be social. It’s in your default settings. So, it’s not abnormal to want to socialise, but it’s abnormal when you are withdrawn and afraid of socialising.

• Look For An Outdoor Or Social Activity You Love Doing: And start doing it! When we were kids, we loved to explore. And any child who didn’t have that natural exploration spirit was tagged unusual. It’s normal for children to be boisterous and happygoing. But as we begin to get old, we gradually shed this wonderful nature for dullness and gloom. Only a few people manage to inherit their childhood socialness in adulthood. Do you like walking, hiking, swimming, football, or other sports? Go out and do it. You’ll meet more people and begin to learn how to interact with people.

• Sometimes You May Need To Cutdown On Social Media And The Digital World: Social media has its usefulness. But sometimes, social media can be a big problem, especially for people who need to meet real people, not the people they meet online. Sometimes, for the sake of our mental health, we need to dilute digital interactions with real-life ones. Look for time and go see that friend face-to-face!

There are so many benefits to being social. This doesn’t mean you should be at every party or social gathering and try to be the centre of attention. The aim of being social is to help you learn how to interact with people and, in so doing, build emotional intelligence.

In the next article, which will be the conclusion, we will look at overcoming challenges on the path to EI.

I write about leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship every Monday on Care City.

Though my writings target healthcare entrepreneurs, leaders and innovators, I feel entrepreneurs and leaders, in general, can learn from them.

Catch you next week Monday, and compliments of the joyful season.

Have a productive week ahead. Bye.