Emotional intelligence plays a big role in the life of any person. If it is sufficiently developed, then such a trait helps to better understand oneself, better analyze the emotions of other people and, as a result, find a common language with them. You can develop this trait throughout your life. There are a few simple ways that can help increase emotional intelligence in adulthood.
Diary of emotions. Such notes should be an analysis of the emotional sphere, which must be done every day. This will allow you to clearly understand your feelings, find them the right explanation. Records will help to understand various situations that arise in life, because, as a rule, any event is accompanied by an emotional reaction. In addition, a diary of emotions will help to identify the degree of negative experiences that can negatively affect one's well-being, success in work or study.
Awareness raising. One must learn not to deceive oneself, not to try to hide true emotions and feelings from oneself. Any feelings, but especially negative ones, require full awareness. Understanding and accepting his emotions, it’s easier for a person to release them from himself afterwards.
Emotional training. There is a fairly simple exercise, which is also suitable for development and children's emotional intelligence. Its implementation will help to understand the differences of some feelings from others. Regular training in front of the mirror will make it easier to “read” the emotional state of those around you. What does this exercise include, how to conduct it? Initially, 10 blank cards / sheets of paper should be prepared. Then you need to write various emotions on them, trying not to be limited only to the most commonplace. When everything is ready, you need to stand in front of the mirror and start, without looking, pull out the cards, after trying to portray the feeling that is written on the piece of paper.
Initially, many people, looking at their reflection and trying to demonstrate even banal joy, are lost, embarrassed, feel constrained. But don’t give up. Among other things, this exercise also allows you to relax, it raises the mood. Gradually it will become easy to depict various feelings with facial expressions and gestures. Over time, you can expand the list of emotions, add some more cards. It is important to conduct such a training regularly, giving it at least half an hour a day. Only in this case will it be possible to achieve results.
Vocabulary expansion. Oddly enough, but the study of new words and their meanings, which are related to the emotional spectrum, has a very positive effect on the awareness of feelings, on the development and increase of the level of emotional intelligence.
For starters, you can play with yourself as follows. Take a piece of paper and write a list of 10 words that will denote certain feelings. Then you need to try to come up with synonyms for each word. Any feeling can be described in general terms, or you can give it more facets, to realize it more deeply. So, for example, “joy” can be revealed as “delight”, “positive”, “inspiration”, “anticipation” and so on. You need to try to find as many additional words as possible to describe the selected emotions. After noting for myself, at what moments it was especially difficult, which of the feelings have only a couple of additional associations. After analyzing, it is worth moving on to the direct expansion of the vocabulary.