EI: Emotional intelligence activities for adults

Emotional intelligence Dimension 1 - Awareness of your own emotions. 1. Set your clock. Stop and ask yourself "How am I feeling?" Make this a regular activity so you get used to stopping and finding out how you are feeling. It may help you at first to set an alarm on your phone or computer, to remind you to do this every hour. At first, setting up reminders will help you do it frequently and regularly even in a busy day, and not just when you remember. After a time, this may become more automatic for you. Make it a habit to ask yourself "How am I feeling?". The ability to self-reflect is a typical activity of people with high levels of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence Dimension 2 - Expressing your emotions clearly. 2. Write your feelings in a journal. Write down your feelings in a journal. Expressing your feelings doesn't simply mean you have to tell someone, it means being able to identify the feeling and expressing it in some way that is helpful. If it's an unpleasant feeling, such as bitterness, frustration, embarrassment, jealousy, or helplessness, you may simply write down how you feel and what has triggered the feeling, and all the thoughts and associated feelings you have. You may then include what in your worst moments you'd like to do in response, and then what other options you have. I have personally used this technique successfully for years. What helps me most is simply to allow a free flow of consciousness. I write without editing until I've got it all out of my system. I often find the feelings ease. I come to a greater understanding of the issues and what was behind my reactions. After this, I sometimes find I need do nothing else, or else it becomes clearer to me what action I could take that is emotionally intelligent. Writing in a journal for 10 mins a day can be a great help. Here are four questions you might like to answer as you write: What upset me today? Why did I get upset? What could I have done to avoid becoming upset? What can I do to help me not to get upset next time?

Emotional intelligence Dimension 3 - Understanding others' emotions. 3. Ask the person. My suggestion here may sound so simple that you may think I'm not treating this seriously. I am. What I suggest you do is to ask a person how he or she feels, as a way of understanding another person's emotions. You do not have to be psychic. If you have a hunch check it out. You may not be right. It is easy to misread others' emotions and then to presume you are correct. Being emotionally intelligent means that you are accurate in reading another person, not that you assume you know. I have been wrong before about other people's emotions and I'm sure you and everyone else has too. Here are a few possible questions you might ask to help you understand another persons's emotions: How are you feeling about ... ? What are you reactions to ... ? I notice you've been quiet and wonder what's going on for you? What's going on for you? What are you making of all this? How do you feel about it all?

Emotional intelligence Dimension 4 - Reasoning with emotions. 4. Ask, "How will I feel if ... ? When you are making decisions practise predicting how you will feel about possible outcomes. Get into the habit of asking yourself the question, "How will I feel if ... ?". For example: "How will I feel if I make this decision?". "How will I feel if in a month's time I don't like it?" "How will I feel if I lose the money I have invested?" "How will I feel if I don't see Robert again?" "How will I feel if I miss my child's birthday?" Then factor your answers to these questions into your final decisions. For instance, imagine you are deciding whether or not to apply for a new job because your present one is too stressful. You find out that the new job involves managing change and that the department is being restructured. Part of the change process may involve downsizing of staff. Ask yourself, "How will I feel if I have to identify which staff will need to go?" "How will I feel if I have to announce the restructure to the staff?" "How will I feel if I have a dejected team afterwards?" Factor your emotional data into the other factors you are taking into account in your decision, such as the salary, location, organisation, essential criteria, and so on.

Emotional intelligence Dimension 5 - Managing your emotions. 5. Self-calm with mindfulness meditation when eating. Practise mindfulness meditation or related meditations such as breath meditation to help calm you down or keep you calm. There is increasing brain research proving that meditation can produce positive changes in the brain and reduce emotions such as tension, anger, anxiety, stress and depression. Mindfulness meditation is about developing the ability to pay attention deliberately, in the present moment, non judgmentally. We all find time to eat, so eating mindfully can be easy to incorporate into our daily lives. If you eat mindfully, you'd focus on all the sensations associated with each of the stages involved in eating: the smell, taste, touch, sound and sight. For example, you'd eat slowly and focus on the smell of the food, notice the texture of the food, linger on the taste of the food, and notice any sounds that you or the food make. You could also pay attention to what you are doing with your knife, fork or spoon, the movement of your arm and hand as you bring food to your mouth and then the movement of your lips, tongue and cheeks as you eat and swallow. You could also notice your saliva and how this changes when you first see your food, as you bring the food up to the front of your lips, as the food enters your mouth, as you start to chew, as you swallow and then after swallowing. By paying attention to eating in this mindful way emotions can calm down and distracting thoughts ease. Listen to our "Happy not hassled: Easy meditations to manage your emotions and find contentment" CD set to get some practical easy-to-follow instructions on four different types of meditation.

Emotional intelligence Dimension 6 - Managing the emotions of others. 6. Say kind words. Practise saying kind things to people and notice their reactions. You might thank them for what they've done. You may praise them for their productivity, patience or thoughtfulness. You may compliment them on some aspect of their appearance, personality or kindness towards you. When you do these things notice whether people brighten up a little, or not. If they do, you are influencing their emotions.

Emotional intelligence Dimension 7 - Controlling strong emotions. 7. Notice the small signs of irritation. Strong emotions can build-up one step at a time. It's a bit like climbing a mountain, it takes many steps to get to the top and then when you do you may find there's a volcanic eruption! So it is with strong emotions. The first step may be a minor irritation. If this is not reversed another irritation may be added on top, and then a third or fourth one. Suddenly, someone says or does something, or something happens, and it sets off a volcanic eruption of anger or frustration in you. One way of helping to ease these anger outbursts is to watch out for early signs of irritation and to deal with them at the time. The more quickly and easily you deal with the early signs the less likely you are to build up stronger emotions and blow up.

Will these emotional intelligence activities make any difference? Developing emotional intelligence as an adult can be a life-long journey. However, by practising a series of tasks such as these, you can start to see results quite quickly. Few of us have ever practised emotional intelligence activities to the same extent we have practised other skill sets. You probably spent considerable time at school learning to read, understanding maths or playing sport. It would be highly unlikely that you ever dedicated anywhere near the same amount of time or practice to emotional intelligence activities. This is why many of us are not very skilled when it comes to emotional intelligence. We have never been trained in it or devoted the time to it. The good news is that with practice and time, emotional intelligence activities can produce significant results in adults. There are many, many activities that you can use in developing your emotional intelligence as an adult. If you'd like to find out more, additional ones are included in our courses and on our CDs.

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Updated 5-Jul-2011