Teaching Emotional Intelligence - 5 Guidelines On How To Teach Successfully Emotional Intelligence

The idea of teaching people how to react to certain situations or conditions or even how to master their emotions in such conditions may seem implausible to some.

This might sound odd, as the concept of emotions is a very subjective one. Every person deals with situations or things in their own way. Emotions are something that is specific to only that particular person and finds its root in the personality of that person. So the reactions of different people to the same situation may be different because of their different personalities. These reactions and emotions form the essential groundwork for our character to build on.

Even before we were born, the specific way our bodies and minds would develop, had already been determined by our genes. All the information about the mixture of our hormones, to our reactions to chemicals, to even the color of our eyes had already been encoded in our specific genes. Along with these features, and many more, even our level of intellect had been already determined. We might make efforts to increase our knowledge, but or IQ level remains the same. This, however, is not the case with our emotional intelligence.

We display our emotions based on out external environment and the situation we are in. so these emotions are only our reactions, and not something we carry with ourselves from our birth. In fact, our growth and development during the initial years of our life, to a great extent affects our emotions. This can be proved by the fact, that when babies are born, they have no knowledge about the negative and positive emotions. But children who are starting to walk are further proof of this.

Even when they are not taught how to walk at first, it is something inside them that gives them the sign that this is something to be learnt. They then start learning how to walk, without any fear of tripping or falling, neither is any fear of failing in this endeavor present in them. It would not be possible for them to take their first few precarious steps, if they had any of these fears.

One of the important aspects of our development is our emotions. All the learning that we have received through our various experiences in the past culminates into the final product of emotional intelligence. If we want, though, we transform our negative or unwanted emotions into positive and meaningful ones through learning the appropriate ways of using their emotional intelligence.

Thus, emotional intelligence should ideally be taught at an early age.

There are certain guidelines for teaching emotional intelligence, developed by Daniel Goleman, who is a psychologist and author and these five points ensure that this teaching is able to change lives.

1. It is important to identify and understand the emotional states of people. To take this one step further, it is also important to understand the relationship between a person's actions, his thoughts, and emotions. These are the first things to be taught.

2. The new important point is to teach the people how to manage their emotions properly. This is the way to transform your unwanted emotions into emotions that can be put to better use to create some value out of them.

3. Thirdly, it is also important to train people to handle their success and achievements especially during an emotional state of life. This can be done through developing a positive outlook and way of thinking, which is anyway an important aspect of one's well being.

4. The fourth is teaching how to enhance the ability to sense the line of a person's emotions.

Through this, we can also gain the sensitivity to understand and empathize with other's emotions.

5. The fifth and the last point is judging and enhancing the capacity of a person to be able to enter into, and sustain a harmonious relationship with the other people around him.

Teaching emotional intelligence no longer remains a difficult job, if one understands all these points.