Five Characteristics of High Emotional Intelligence

December, it’s the hap-happiest season of all. With holiday greeting cards to mail, travel plans to make, parties to host, gifts to purchase and in-law encounters to navigate, it can also be the busiest time of year. Does your holiday “to do” list seem longer than Santa’s naughty or nice list? You are not alone.

According to health experts at the Mayo Clinic, the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s is a particularly stressful time of year.

Just as you manage your dizzying list of demands throughout the holiday season, it is imperative that you also cope with the pressures and stress related to the “most wonderful time of the year.” Below we outline some of the characteristics that can be learned and practiced to better handle our emotions and the pressures of being a mother and a wife.

When you feel overwhelmed by the holiday season, it can be hard to stop and regroup. Preventing stress and depression in the first place is the best approach but that can be difficult if the holidays have taken a toll on you in the past. Each of us have different personalities, wants and needs, and different ways of expressing our emotions. Our level of emotional intelligence (EQ) will impact how we handle various stressful situations.
Ready to start your journey to emotional freedom?

Read the first article in the series: Learn to Identify Your Emotions

What is emotional intelligence? It’s the ability to recognize your emotions, understand what they’re telling you, and realize how your emotions affect people around you. Individuals with high emotional intelligence possess the following five characteristics:

1. Self-awareness – having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts and beliefs (most important element of emotional intelligence)
2. Self-regulation – ability to control emotions and impulses and think before acting
3. Motivation – willingness to defer immediate results for long-term success
4. Empathy – ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs and viewpoints of others (second-most important element of emotional intelligence)
5. Social Skills – focus on helping others develop and shine rather than on your own success

Building on and increasing our level of emotional intelligence will help us to communicate better, reduce our anxiety and stress, defuse conflicts, empathize with others and improve relationships. Over the next several months, we’ll take an in-depth look at each of the five characteristics of high emotional intelligence and the specific steps and activities you can take to increase your EQ.

We’ll also examine the various coping mechanisms (both the good ones and the negative ones) that we use to deal with our emotions. But that’s only the starting point, we’re going to embark on a journey together as we learn to identify our emotions, practice healthy ways to release them and steps to prevent stress and depression in the first place.

In order to change the way we feel about a situation, we must first change the way we think about it. How do we handle our negative emotions? The first step is to identify the emotion and this takes practice. We invite you to join us as we tackle our emotions together. This blog is a space to share what is going on in your world, develop self-love and support other women. Please leave a comment below about a stressful situation you’ve experienced recently, something that bugs you about the holiday season or an encouraging word to inspire someone else.

Identify Your Emotions