Emotional Intelligence Will Not Make You Happier, But You Will Live Better

Emotional intelligence will not make you happier, it will not ensure that adversity does not knock on your door or that difficulties worry you less. Although they sometimes try to sell us the idea that with this competition we will achieve professional and personal success by building the kind of life we ​​want, all these slogans have important nuances.

Daniel Goleman made it clear in the 90s with his famous book Emotional Intelligence: this area has only one purpose and it is none other than to bring intelligence to the emotions. That is the real key, empowering ourselves as more skilled people in this dimension to better coexist with others and learn to regulate our behavior knowing what we need and how to respond to those needs.

That is the goal and that, in turn, the real magic. Because, in reality, something that we should aspire to in our day to day is not absolute happiness, that state of permanent joy and satisfaction.  Our reality is already complex, uncertain and changing enough for that absolute climax to be something really lasting.

What we should want is to be good with ourselves, to feel that even when difficulties come, we have psychological resources to handle them. It is also to understand that human relationships are complicated and that, at times, they bring suffering. But with emotional intelligence we will handle these situations much better so as not to get stuck and facilitate a better coexistence.

Let’s learn more about it.

Emotional intelligence will not make you happier, but you will feel more competent

Lack of emotional intelligence is common. We see it in those adults who do not know how to lead a conversation in which to listen, respect and express needs and ideas clearly and without losing their roles. We also observe it in our jobs, in those managers who do not take care of the emotional climate of their workers and impose aggressive leadership.

Moreover, we also appreciate this lack in parents who do not know how to educate their children in this competition. They invalidate their children’s emotions with the classic ” don’t cry, don’t be like that because it’s silly” or “you’re old enough for these tantrums, so you stay there until you get over it.”

Educating in emotional intelligence is to recognize that behind each behavior there is an emotion. Therefore, the purpose of every parent will be to develop that emotional maturity and that self-awareness from a very early age. However, we have been seeing these deficiencies for decades and although a change is already being appreciated at the educational level and in the schools, we still have much to do, correct and promote.

Therefore, it is necessary, in turn, to clarify some ideas.

Being emotionally intelligent is not a gift, it is a quality that is worked on

Emotional intelligence will not make you happier, it will not make you top of the class or the absolute leader in your dream job. We are not talking about a gift with which one can directly catapult to success. We are facing a quality that allows us to lay the foundations for a more satisfactory and skillful reality.

Understanding, using, regulating and managing our emotions  allows, for example, to deal with stress much better.

All of these are qualities of life, tools for well-being and resources to face adversity. After all, happiness comes and goes. What we really need are mechanisms to move swiftly between difficult days and resources to take advantage of calm days.

All this will allow us to feel self-realized and satisfied with ourselves in any circumstance, easy or complicated.

Emotional intelligence won’t make you happier, but it will lay the groundwork

Emotional intelligence will not make you happier, but it will put the psychological nutrients for you to achieve it. This is what they show us, for example, in an interesting study carried out in 2007 at the University of Oxford by Dr. Alex Furnham. According to this work, emotional intelligence lays the foundations for us to perceive ourselves as more satisfied with ourselves.

However, there is a fundamental element and that is that happiness is a multidimensional area. It integrates aspects such as our affective and social relationships, having reached certain goals, living according to our values, having a day to day in which we do not feel fear or anguish and feel fulfilled, among others.

Emotional intelligence is not the answer to everything, but it drives and helps you achieve many of these aspects. Moreover, this quality by itself will not prevent losses, disappointments, failures from coming to us … Unhappiness is also part of life and we must accept it knowing that it is not permanent.

Emotional intelligence will help us manage these states so that we can move to stages of acceptance, to those cycles in which although happiness is not absolute, everything hurts less and we allow ourselves to give ourselves new opportunities. Thats the secret.