What Is Emotional Intelligence?

“Emotional Intelligence” and “Emotional Resilience” are phrases thrown around the creative entrepreneur online space quite regularly… but how many people actually really know what these phrases mean?

And when I say mean, what does having emotional intelligence + a resilient mindset really mean to your quality of life (both personal and business)? That’s what this post is all about, my friends.

Defining Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as an ability to perceive, interpret, demonstrate, control, evaluate and use emotions to communicate and relate with others effectively. It’s been said by experts that this is more important than measures like IQ to determine our ‘success’ in life. I believe it without a doubt! Though things like ‘success’ are very subjective, of course, emotional intelligence and strong interpersonal skills are much more of an asset in real-life relationships than textbook knowledge.

The thing is, being awake to EI is still relatively new in our society, as the term wasn’t coined by researchers until the 1990s! But ever since, there’s been more and more research done and arguments made for the importance of developing this ability.

What It Really Means to Be Emotionally Intelligent

If you’re already on a resilient mindset journey, you’ve likely begun to develop your EI more than you even know. Being emotionally intelligent means that you can:

• Distinguish the nuances of your emotions – when you feel big emotions like anger, you take the time to gain clarity over what you actually feel before acting upon them or even necessarily believing them.

• Actually see, understand and distinguish what others are feeling – you’re perceptive to the emotions and feelings of others around you and can hold them with compassion. You’re socially aware.

• Be willing and open to receiving and giving constructive feedback and even criticism because you know you can grow from it.

Emotional Intelligence as a Creative Entrepreneur

Now, why is being attuned to your EI so important as a creative entrepreneur or business owner?

Consider the mindset journey of entrepreneurship – it’s a wild ride. You need to be able to make connections with those like you – meaning those “business besties” who simply just really understand what you’re going through. When you’re deeply attuned to your emotional intelligence, you’re able to form more aligned relationships.

You can also attract and convert soul-aligned clients and customers when you’re deeply attuned to your emotional intelligence. You can create deeply meaningful conversations that make others feel safe to explore how they can work with you next.

Other moments in business where emotional intelligence is a huge asset:

• You’re able to manage emotions during stressful times like managing tight deadlines, receiving feedback or dealing with challenging relationships.

• You have greater resiliency in bouncing back from setbacks and ‘failure’

• You can manage things like difficult conversations or conflict resolution with greater comfort and ease

What’s not to love about taking the time to build your EI? It will not only help you live a more fulfilling life in your personal relationships, it will also greatly benefit your business!

If you’d like to discuss how I can hold space for you as you build your emotional intelligence, you know where to find me.

Build Your Emotional Intelligence With Resilience-Building Journaling

Journaling is a beautiful tool and technique for developing your EI and resilience mindset, creating sustained habit changes while providing yourself with gentle self-care. In this free guide, you can get started on your own emotional intelligence + resilience journaling journey with 70 guided journaling prompts.

Download For Free

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