Welcome to the third and most likely final Part of my emotional Intelligence guide. The point to these guides is to give a simple, clear, yet concise information amount emotional intelligence. I like for these to be informative and straight to the point. I do hope you enjoy reading this as much I as I did writing it. If you haven’t yet, I do suggest reading my previous two guides on emotional intelligence.

In my first EI post we covered the “What is Emotional Intelligence.” In my second EI post we covered the “Why emotional intelligence is important.” In the third part, I plan to address the “how” as in how can I raise my emotional intelligence.

How do I raise my Emotional Intelligence?

Yes, raise it. More power.

Like with everything one word stands out to achieve this goal. Repetition. That is, through repetition you can raise your Emotional Intelligence. By working on your EI every day you can change behaviors. Learn new ones, and consciously change the way you think to gear it toward a higher emotional intelligence and awareness. Thankfully, there are a huge number of resources you can use to help in raising your emotional intelligence. Below are a few simple tips you can start doing right now to help.

1: Pay attention to your emotions. Don’t let them overwhelm you.

It’s easy to not pay attention to how we are feeling. Especially dealing with the non stop stress of daily life. When you’re feeling an emotion, especially a negative one stop to think about it. People with a high EI understand their emotions. They know when to not let certain emotions impact their decision-making process. If you're upset, ask yourself, “Why am I angry?” “Should I be angry?” “Is there a better way to approach this?” Pay attention to how your emotions impact you physically and emotionally. Over time you can understand how to better handle them.

2: Don't let your emotions control your behavior

Human beings are emotional creatures by nature, its part of what drives us. Following on the first point, it's important to understand how your emotions impact your behavior. Does certain type of stress impact your behavior negatively? If so what can you do to improve it? By understanding how your emotions impact your behavior you can work on better/more positive reactions.

3: Be open to what other people think

As we get older it becomes very easy to confuse opinion with fact. This can happen to an extent that we only surround ourselves with people who agree with us. While completely ignoring opinions which disagree with our viewpoint. This can stifle emotional growth. Take the time to listen to other peoples viewpoints. Both on none important things and important things to you including your behavior. Be receptive to other thoughts, new ideas and learn from them. You don't need to totally reinvent yourself as a person to learn how to improve yourself.

4: You are responsible for your feelings

At the end of the day how your emotions impact you is your choice. Outside forces are only a factor, but you decide how to approach a problem. This is what makes a difference between a glass half full vs half empty type of person. Even if people do something to anger you or behave poorly don't blame them if you let it control you. Learn how to manage your emotions in order to have a happy and positive impact on your life.

These are just a few quick tips to get started on ways to improve your EI. The other thing I will say is to remember this is like learning anything else. Such as exercise, martial arts, learning a new language, you never “Master it,” and then you are done. As mentioned above repetition day in and day out for the rest of your life will yield the best results. At the end of this post, I'll include links to more tips on improving your EI.

What are all the options to improve my EI?

So, so many options...

Paid options:

As you would expect there are a huge number of paid options to raise your emotional intelligence.

Places such as NST offer seminars on Developing Your Emotional Intelligence to increase workplace efficiency.

The Dale Carnegie institution also offers classes which, while not focusing strictly on emotional intelligence will train you on many aspects which will directly impact your EI and raise it.

Other companies offer similar services usually in the form of live seminars or online classes. While often effective these can also be pricey for most people. Usually averaging anywhere from $200 to $600 per person. Sometimes your company might be willing to pay for such training. Thankfully, there are other options.

What are the free/Cheap do it yourself options?

For children, there is the possibility that your school offers a free or cheap SEL (Social and emotional learning) program. As I mentioned in part 2 of my EI guide studies have shown that school aged children who were enrolled in such programs demonstrated significantly improved social and emotional skills along with better academic scores. If your school does not offer such programs you can make them aware of it. Casel offers a lot of information and resources for educators to plan out such programs in a classroom setting.

There are also lots of other cheap alternatives including books for emotional intelligence and development in both kids and adults.

Amazon has a lot of useful books.

One such book on Raising a emotionally intelligent child provides useful information.

There are also books for adults about ways to Raise your Emotional Intelligence

A personal favorite of mine though is the book How to Win Friends & Influence People written by Dale Carnegie. Again, this book isn’t geared specifically toward EI. But when reading it you’ll notice it mentions many core concepts which directly to improving your EI and your relationships with others. I would suggest to check out most of any of his other books as well.

Aside from that, Google is your best friend. There are tons of free resources out there including forums to learn about EI. As I mentioned earlier at the end of this article I will also list a number of free resources and web sites.

Closing thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. If you’re new to my articles I suggest reading part 1 and 2 of this series. At the end day, regardless if you have a high EI (or EQ according to some people) you can always keep learning more about it. And again if you need improvement, it’s nothing to stress over. Work on raising your EI a little day by day and you’ll find that the positive results will last a lifetime.

If you have any thoughts, comments and such please feel free to let me know. If you enjoyed this, please,