05 Aug 7 Powerful Habits of People With High Emotional Intelligence
via Inc.com by Bill Murphy
Think about the people you know who always seem to get what they want.
Are they self-centered? Are they their own best advocates? When you think of their success, do you feel happy for them?
Do you admire them? If you don’t, let’s assume for our purposes that other people don’t admire them either. So how does someone become successful while consistently making enemies?
And if you do admire them, think about that, too. Is it purely the scope of their success that prompts your respect? Or is it something else — perhaps something about the way they make you feel about them?
Another word for feelings: emotions. Truly emotionally intelligent people understand this. That’s why they work to adopt some very powerful habits that make it easier and more likely for them to get what they want.
Habits like these, for example.
1. They seek to support.
Emotionally intelligent people seek to support other people.
Sounds altruistic, doesn’t it? Well, it can be. But it can also be strategic — even shrewd.
Because people are concerned about what affects them. They might be kind, decent, noble — even selfless. They’re still human beings, and they will react to the way things affect them, personally.
So, if you want to engage with people effectively, think about whether your words and actions are offered in a way that seems to support them, or that seems to support yourself. The more it’s the former over the latter, the better they’ll feel about you, even if they don’t realize it.
Example: Suppose you’re desperate to sell your house. A young couple comes to look at it, beautiful children in tow.
“You have such a beautiful family,” you say to them. “You’re exactly the type of people I would feel proud to help have this house. I would love to find a way to make that happen.”
Everything you said might be true–but you smartly leave out the part about being desperate to sell. That wouldn’t be supportive; it would shift the focus to what you need, as opposed to what you can do for them.
It wouldn’t be as effective, and it wouldn’t be as emotionally intelligent.
2. They watch their language.
I don’t mean that they don’t use curse words. They might.
But emotionally intelligent people learn to be very intentional in their word choices and reactions.
I say this because there are word choices that people with low emotional intelligence make all the time, and that betray them–subtle cues that let the other person in a conversation know that you think your needs are more important than theirs.
I’ve written about this before. You’ll find checklists of some of these phrases here, here, here, and here. Seriously, they’ll help.
Want a quick example? Emotionally intelligent people never say “I know how you feel.”
Because you can almost never, really, 100 percent know what someone else feels. You can try to, and you can repeat people’s words back to them, mirroring their feelings. But it’s a very rare circumstance when you can truly understand another person’s experience.
We know this intuitively. But some of us say it anyway.
Emotionally intelligent people learn that it sometimes doesn’t matter what they mean to say. Instead, it matters more what the person they’re talking with hearsand understands.
That’s why they keep track of their language patterns. They improve the odds that the message they hope to get across will be received as they intend.
3. They don’t assume.
Two things about human beings: We are impatient, and we are insecure.
Of course, some of us are more so than others. And some of us learn over time to overcome these traits.
We all have them, though, buried as they may be — and that’s why we can be prone to rush to fill in the gaps of our understanding.
We assume things that aren’t necessarily true, because they square with things we believe or hope to be true–or even that we fear will be true.
It’s a natural, emotional reaction — but it’s one that also prevents you getting what you want out of life, because you arm yourself with distorted facts.
An example: You want to make an important sale. You believe the customer truly appreciates your product. You’re convinced that he or she wants to make a deal.
And because you want it so badly, you assume that he or she also has authority to act. Or can afford it.
If you’re right, you’re flying high. If you’re wrong, you’ve allowed your emotions to blind you to reality.
And you’re less likely to get what you want as a result.
Emotionally intelligent people stop and think: Am I assuming something that’s not actually proved? How would I react differently if I admitted that I did not know?
… keep reading the full & original article HERE
#happiness #happy #emotionalintelligence #EI