What's Your Emotional Intelligence? 5 Questions to Help You Figure It Out

 by Chris Daily

Do you want to know your emotional intelligence? There are thorough emotional intelligence tests and assessments you can complete online to determine your emotional quotient (EQ). Calculating your emotional quotient provide a scored value to evaluate the various pillars of emotional intelligence. Here are just five questions that can help you get an idea of how you manage emotions.

What Are Your Values?

Name a handful of values that are the most important to you. These should be the core values that guide your decision-making, the things you strive for in life.

Actually, this is a trick question. Ask yourself this: How long did it take for you to think of your core values? Are you still wondering what they are? 

People with high emotional quotient (EQ) know their core values well. These values are always at the forefront of their mind. If you struggled to consider yours, you may need a little boost to your Emotional Intelligence. Self-awareness is one of the cornerstones of Emotional Intelligence and improving your Emotional Intelligence can help you become more self-aware.

Do You Recognize Your Own Emotions as You Experience Them?

In other words, could you tell someone what emotional state you're in while you're in it? Can you identify which of your own emotions are driving your behavior? Or do you get overcome and upset and only later discover that your own emotions are behind what you were feeling?

Answer this question as honestly and objectively as possible. An emotionally intelligent person can identify their emotions as they feel them. People who have high emotional awareness know how to regulate and control, and thus handle their own emotions in an appropriate way. If you don't feel that you can manage emotions, you could stand to improve your emotional intelligence.

Do Your Emotions Have a Strong Impact on How You Behave?

Are you generally in control of your emotions, or are you led by them? Consider a time recently when you've felt a strong emotion. Did you do or say anything rash? Or, in spite of what you were feeling, were you able to utilize self awareness to handle the situation calmly and appropriately? Are you capable of managing emotions?

High emotional intelligence gives you self awareness, control over your emotions, and provides coping mechanisms and interpersonal skills to help you deal with them.

Are You Curious about People?

Are you generally interested in other people, and especially people you don't know? People who are emotionally intelligent are good listeners and strongly empathetic. They take a sincere interest in other people. If this sounds like you, you probably have a high level of emotional intelligence.

Can You "Read" People?

Can you understand the emotions and motivations behind the things people do or say? Do you have trouble understanding those that you have personal relationships in your personal life. Most people aren't truly self-aware, and this comes through in their social skills and way that they communicate. They may communicate through subtle phrases or body language hints, and they may not even have the emotional awareness to be aware that they're doing it.

If you're emotionally intelligent, you can read these signals and understand the emotions behind them. Emotional intelligence helps make you are an excellent communicator, an empathetic person, and have great interpersonal skills.

These five questions are far from thorough, but hopefully they've given you some idea of where you stand in terms of emotional intelligence. Remember that emotional intelligence is something you can learn and improve. Let this be a starting point for managing emotions and nurturing your emotional intelligence.

Are you striving to improve your emotional awareness and your emotional intelligence? Check out Agile Meridian. We offer a community, as well as instructor-led and eLearning courses, that support your journey to greater emotional intelligence. Check out our Agile Meridian Academy for a lot of great information.