Friday, May 29, 2009

Emotional Intelligence and Relationship Building

The best things in life – success, happiness, love – depend on our ability to create and maintain great relationships. Most of us do a good job with relationships at the start, only to stumble down the road. Why do relationships develop such challenging problems?

Oftentimes, relationship problems are due to a breakdown in the skills of emotional intelligence. Fortunately, it’s never too late to develop these skills and raise your emotional intelligence abilities. Once you’ve learned the five key emotional intelligence skills, you’ll be able to create and sustain secure, successful, long-lasting relationships.

Many people put their best foot forward in a new work setting or when looking to attract a mate, but stumble while trying to maintain their relationships over the long term. That’s because keeping a relationship healthy and fulfilling requires a unique skill set that many of us don’t have. This skill set is known as emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, control, and effectively communicate our own emotions, and to recognize the emotions of other people. When our emotional intelligence skills are well developed, we have a solid emotional foundation that helps us build strong relationships and communicate clearly.


The skills of emotional intelligence help you:
>>Build rewarding, lasting relationships
>>Stay calm and focused, regardless of the circumstances
>>Understand your own motivations, feelings, and needs
>>Recognize the difference between damaging and helpful communication
>>Accurately “read” other people
>>Defuse arguments and repair wounded feelings
>>Find more playfulness and joy in your relationships
>>Transform conflict into an opportunity for building trust

Emotions are the building blocks of each relationship in our lives, and the power of those emotions cannot be overlooked. Emotions override our thoughts and profoundly influence our behavior – often without our awareness.

Most people seek relationship advice to find answers to problems they believe are responsible for their conflicts—without realizing there are more fundamental issues at the core of those problems. They are attempting to heal the surface symptoms of their dysfunctional relationships, without examining the real emotional issues that are simmering beneath. But until those fundamental issues are addressed, the problems and conflicts will continue.

Enjoy reading more on Emotional Intelligence on helpguide.org

Happy reading....