Our personal and professional development is intimately linked to our emotional intelligence, that is to say our ability to perceive and express emotions. We offer you a good opportunity to put it to the test by completing these five practical exercises.
According to its official definition: “emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive and express emotions, to understand and reason with emotions, as well as to regulate emotions in oneself and in others“*.
More concretely, emotional intelligence identifies the capacities of a person through his personal skills and his social abilities : self-confidence, creativity, empathy, self-control, power of persuasion, etc. These are what we called the soft skills (or emotional skills).
We now know that it is not necessarily individuals with a high IQ who are the most successful in life. It is by responding to a QE test (emotional quotient) that we can assess the level of his emotional intelligence. Here is how you can progress through five exercises.
1- The mind map
The technique of ” mental map Is very valuable for working on emotional intelligence. Focused by the English psychologist Tony buzan (died in 2019), it is intended to improve note taking and therefore the understanding of a problem. It is also a very useful exercise to promote divergent thinking and, ultimately, improve creativity and emotional intelligence.
- Take a word of departure. Write around this word the associations of ideas that you immediately think of. Each is circled and linked to the starting word by a line.
- Match new words to each previous association. Your goal: to run out of space on the sheet.
2- the detective
Here’s another emotional intelligence test to practice on a night out with strangers or in a public place, like an airport or shopping mall. Take a good look at the people around you. As astonishing as it may sound, an individual standing in the middle of a crowd acts as if he is alone in the world.
- For each person scrutinized, identify if his body says “yes” (positive attitude) or not “ (negative attitude).
- Observe them possible changes which can intervene when one goes from “yes” to “no” and vice versa. Try to identify what determines each time the changes in the behavior of the individuals you observe.
For example, see this man with his little boy, he is in a “yes” situation. He walks with his chest upright, shoulders relaxed. Suddenly he has a shifty gaze and his face closes. He passed in a “no” situation while his child begged him to enter a shop to buy something …
3- The debriefing
Search your memory for a situation in your life where you have experienced real failure. You will use the “debriefing” technique, which consists of analyzing and understanding the reason (s) for this failure.
- Mentally relive the chosen situation, step by step. You can tell it out loud or write it down. Do not omit any detail and limit yourself to the unfolding of the facts.
- Identify the key moments, those where it happened something meaningful compared to the fatal outcome. For each of them, ask yourself, “why? “,” Because of what (of whom)? “, And” where does my personal responsibility lie? “
These questions will allow you to cold understand the ins and outs of your unhappy experience. Then put your emotional intelligence into action and use the answers obtained to envision the unfolding of the facts. as if everything went well.
4- The scenario
Read these three case studies corresponding to typical everyday situations. Reread the statement several times in succession if necessary, trying to put yourself in the shoes of the character. Empathy is a key skill of emotional intelligence.
To help you, mentally visualize the attitude and thoughts you might be having when you are in their shoes.
- Hélène is 43 years old. She enjoys her job as an executive assistant, but she can no longer bear the unwarranted remarks of her boss. The latter does not miss an opportunity to humiliate him in public. She is exhausted and when she returns home, her children and her husband do not understand the crying fits that sometimes shake her.
- Sophie is 35 and she hates driving a car since the accident she had when she was a student with friends. The two people in the car lost their autonomy. When she gets into a vehicle, even at a standstill, she feels profoundly unwell.
- Jean has a friendly, but utterly inefficient office colleague. At the slightest remark, the colleague loses his temper and borders on paranoia. Jean is considerably slowed down in his job.
5- The happiness list
- List the 10 things that make you especially happy. Challenge yourself to complete at least half of it over two weeks.
- At the same time, list 10 actions that could make happy and give happiness around you.
- Challenge yourself to achieve at least three over the next two weeks. Focus on what you can do for others, then it will be natural to do more and more for yourself.
Do you know of other very simple little exercises to develop emotional intelligence? Share them in the comments …
* Based on the original concept definition in 1990 by Salovey & Mayer.
