What is Emotional Intelligence?
And why is ‘EI’ so important for us?
Thinking about how many of us have come to perceive Monday mornings, a new start to the working week for so many; how are our often negative thoughts about this morning serving us?
Why have we allowed ourselves to start a fresh new week, full of possibilities, with such a downer?
The Monday ‘Moan’
In resuming my blogging activities, following the most busy of summers, I’m switching the publishing day to Monday’s. When Ian Pegg, my web developer, suggested writing about Monday’s “because so many people are finding their thoughts creating depression” – it was easy to agree, Kudos Ian!
Those ‘Boomtown Rats’
It’s all in the mind!
So, why do we insist on setting ourselves up for a rough start to a new week?
It’s very much about these chaps. Culture, habit and ‘conditioning’! We HAVE choices, but in behaving without conscious thought, we find ourselves joining the throng of ‘Monday haters’, because that’s what we have learned and been exposed to – and our cognitive minds just love patterns and repetitiveness.
Back to Emotional Intelligence
There are many different models and definitions of emotional intelligence. Here are two of the best definitions for you, courtesy of EIinstitute.com.
1. Mayer and Salovey’s EI model
The original research into Emotional Intelligence was begun by two professors of psychology, John (Jack) Mayer and Peter Salovey, in 1990. Their focus was exclusively on emotions and what we do with them. In 1990, they defined emotional intelligence as:
The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ emotions, to discriminate among these emotions, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.
In 1997 they produced a 16-step model of emotional intelligence that outlines the developmental progression of emotional intelligence from childhood to adulthood.
2. The GENOS EI model
The Genos model of Emotional Intelligence was developed by Dr Ben Palmer and Professor Con Stough at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia. They define emotional intelligence as follows:
Emotional intelligence is the skill with which you perceive, express, reason with and manage your own and others’ emotions.
They identified seven different levels of emotional intelligence:
- emotional self-awareness
- emotional expression
- emotional awareness of others
- emotional reasoning
- emotional self-management
- emotional management of others
- emotional self-control
Emotional Intelligence is how smart you are about your own and other people’s emotions. Smart emotions make smart people. – Rachel Green
There is much more to share with you before we’re done with emotional intelligence, so if you haven’t yet subscribed to receive these posts, please do so and benefit from them waiting for you first thing on Monday morning, getting your week off on the right emotional footing! Remember to honour your choices about this and every day, thank you for being here.
Bob Brotchie is a counsellor, mindset consultant and creator of "Conscious Living by Design"™. He writes for Anglia Counselling, is featured on various other websites and introduces us to many guest writers all covering topics related to mental health and wellbeing.
Bob provides bespoke counselling services to individuals and couples in the privacy and comfort of a truly welcoming environment at his Anglia Counselling company office, located near Newmarket in Suffolk, England. Bob also provides professional online counselling, for local, national, and international clients. The therapeutic models offered are bespoke to the client’s needs, especially those in receipt of 'childhood emotional neglect' (CEN), whilst integrating a mindful approach to psychotherapy and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) principles. For clients experiencing trauma and/or phobia, Bob offers EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).