How can you develop your emotional intelligence and empathy skills with positive psychology techniques?

To me, EQ is more important than IQ. Emotional intelligence means recognizing, understanding, and managing our own emotions and being aware of others' emotions. It's a skill to avoid letting your emotions get the best of any situation - crucial in business and entrepreneurship.

Emotional intelligence is existential in nature and is thus unrelated to the intellect. The degree to which we can exercise emotional intelligence depends on the degree to which we can comprehend life in the existential context. Paying attention to life is the key to exercising emotional intelligence.

EI is not just talking about feelings, or being nice all the time, or never experiencing negative emotions!! You need to be able to : 1. Know and identify what you are feeling 2. Why you are feeling that way 3. How to manage your reactions to situations that make you feel a certain way 4. How to identify other's motivations, feelings and drivers 5. How to empathise and correctly evaluate other's emotions 6. How to respond in social contexts and react in a mature way with others 7. How to help, empathise, motivate & persuade others.

Empathy is putting yourself in someone else's shoes, feeling what they're feeling, and understanding their problem. It's an unspoken connection with others where you can pick up on and understand their emotions, even without them saying a word.

Realizing ourselves as fibers, woven into the singular fabric of life, is the key to developing empathy. This realization can only arise after paying some attention to life. The awareness which then emerges, allows us to not only find our place in life, but to accept the place in life of others as well.

Here are two great techniques and exercises to learn to become more empathetic: 1. Perspective-taking exercises: I give clients a situation and ask them to imagine themselves in the other person's shoes, how would they think, feel and act? What are the reasons someone might be acting a certain way. 2. Storytelling: Give them a certain story and asking them to come up with different motivations as to what the situation was and why did someone act the way they did. Encourage active listening and empathy as participants share their stories and connect with each other's experiences.

My favorite way to practice gratitude is journaling first thing in the morning. Penning down what I'm grateful for shifts my focus from what's missing to what's abundant. The best way to do it? Speak up! Whether it's a simple 'thank you' or a heartfelt message to a friend, expressing gratitude strengthens your relationships and well-being.

Start a daily gratitude journal to reflect on what you are thankful for. Engage in random acts of kindness to cultivate empathy. Use positive psychology techniques like focusing on the good in others and expressing appreciation regularly. Practice active listening to understand others' perspectives better. Reflect on how gratitude impacts your emotions and relationships. By fostering gratitude, you can enhance empathy skills and emotional intelligence, leading to more meaningful connections and a positive outlook on life.

Bring your hands together in the prayer/yoga position. Now, with your hands, send out a feeling of gratitude to all that is! The universe will respond in kind. Stay Blessed!

Affirmations are essentially sounds, organized in a desired manner. To use affirmations effectively, we must first realize that the material world is made up of sound. Sound, when raised to a high enough frequency, manifests as heat & light. Now think about the best thing that you can possibly say for your own wellbeing and for the wellbeing of those around you. Now, say it to the emptiness which pervades all!

5 tips for delivering effective feedback -Ask permission first -Share as objectively as possible by focusing on behaviors -Share the impact of their behavior -Express a growth mindset & that you can about the relationship/them and believe they can improve -Be open to hearing their side

A few things that help with feedback: 1. Focus on Behavior, Not Personality: Critique actions, decisions, or behaviors rather than making judgments about character or personality. 2. Focus on Actionable Steps: Offer suggestions for how they can improve, what actionable steps they could take and what resources they could use. 3. Encourage Two-Way Communication: Create an open dialogue where questions can be asked, and where they can seek clarification or share their perspective. This promotes understanding and engagement.

Before giving feedback, one must carefully and realistically assess the abilities of the person in question. No amount of feedback can produce an outcome if the person in question is incapable of producing it.

Great questions tend to have a few key elements. They are open-ended, non-judgemental, and the aim is understanding. It does depend on the context for what question you should ask. But some of the best questions at work start with "What" rather than "Why." For example instead of saying, "Why didn’t you submit the project to our client at 5pm?" You would instead ask, "What held up the project?" Questions that start with why tend to spark defensiveness where questions that start with what put the focus on the challenge rather than the person.