Emotional Intelligence ( Eq ) - 1051 Words

As a student of psychology with a desire to pursue a career in counseling, understanding and developing personal emotional intelligence could play a significant role in the success or failure of my career. Emotional Intelligence (EQ), according to John Mayer (2009) is the ability to be aware of and manage one’s own and others emotions (para. 1). Myers (2013) identifies four components of emotional intelligence (pg. 375). The first is emotional awareness, or the ability to recognize emotions in yourself and others. Second is the ability to understand emotions. In other words, to understand how emotions affect us personally, how they affect others, and the meanings emotions convey. In addition to being aware of and understanding emotions,†¦show more content†¦I have a solid foundation from which to further develop my EQ. When I asked two friends for feedback concerning this quiz, they thought my scores were slightly low. On nine to ten questions, they raise my scores by one or two points. They also acknowledged that our perspective could bias our scores. Recognizing that we did not choose a score of 1 or 5 for any ability, a friend commented that we are inclined to view issues conservatively, being uncomfortable with â€Å"absolute† measures. We tend to view â€Å"1† as irredeemable and â€Å"5† as perfect, which we believe no human can be. Factors that contributed to higher scores on the quiz have come from experience and growth. Learning about and gaining a greater awareness of my own emotions, allows me to begin to accept and express my emotions in a positive way. Recognizing when I am becoming angry, for example, allows me to channel my response. Rather than lashing out at others without thinking, or deny my anger by trying to just stop being angry, I will stop and think through what is making me angry, then use the energy that anger provides to try to resolve the issue or take appropriate action as necessary. Learning to resolve anger this way allows me to respond to another’s anger by assisting in channeling their anger in a similar manner. Lower scores are the result of a lack of awareness of my own emotions and a lack of maturity to resolve an