Emotional Intelligence Won’t Make You Happier, But You’ll Live Better

Emotional intelligence won’t make you happier, won’t guarantee that adversity won’t knock at your door or that difficulties won’t worry you anymore. Although they sometimes try to convince us that, with this competence, we will achieve professional and personal success by building the kind of life we ​​desire, all these slogans have important nuances.

Daniel Goleman made this clear in the 90s with his famous book  Emotional Intelligence:  this area has a single purpose, and it is nothing more than bringing intelligence to the emotions. That’s the real key; empower ourselves as more qualified people in this dimension to better develop coexistence with other people and learn to regulate our behavior knowing what we need and how to respond to those needs.

That’s the goal and, in turn, the real magic. Because, in reality,  something we should aspire to in our daily lives is not absolute happiness, that state of permanent joy and satisfaction. Our reality is already complex, uncertain and changeable enough that that absolute climax is something really lasting.

What we should want is to be good to ourselves, to feel that even when difficulties arise, we have psychological resources to deal with them. It is also to understand that human relationships are complicated and that, at times, they bring suffering. However, with emotional intelligence, we will deal much better with these situations so that we do not become stagnant and facilitate a better coexistence.

Let’s learn more about this.

Emotional intelligence won’t make you happier, but you’ll feel more competent.

Lack of emotional intelligence is common. We can see this in those adults who do not know how to conduct a conversation by listening, respecting and expressing their needs and ideas clearly and without losing their cool. We also observe it in our jobs, in those bosses who do not take care of their employees’ emotional state and impose aggressive leadership.

Furthermore, we can also see this lack in parents who do not know how to educate their children in this competence. They invalidate their kids’ emotions with the classic “don’t cry, don’t look like this because it’s silly” or “you’re too old to have these tantrums, so stay there until you get over it.”

Educating with emotional intelligence is recognizing that, behind every behavior, there is an emotion. Therefore, the purpose of every parent will be to develop this emotional maturity and self-awareness from an early age. However, we have seen these deficiencies for decades, and although a change is already being seen at the educational level and in schools, we still have a lot to do,  correct and promote.

Therefore, it is necessary to clarify some ideas.

Being emotionally intelligent is not a gift, it is a quality that can be worked on.

Emotional intelligence won’t make you happier, it won’t make you the best in the class or the absolute leader in your dream job. We’re not talking about a gift that allows you to catapult yourself directly to success. We are facing a quality that allows us to lay the foundations to create a more satisfactory and qualified reality.

Understanding, using, regulating and managing our emotions  , for example, allows us to deal with stress much better.

These are all qualities of life, tools for well-being and resources to face adversity. After all, happiness comes and goes. What we really need are mechanisms to get through the tough days quickly and resources to take advantage of the quiet days.

All of this will allow us to feel self-fulfilled and satisfied with ourselves in any circumstance, be it easy or complicated.

Emotional intelligence won’t make you happier, but it will lay the groundwork.

Emotional intelligence will not make you happier, but it will provide the psychological nutrients to achieve happiness. This is shown, for example, by an interesting study carried out in 2007 at Oxford University by Dr. Alex Furnham. According to this work, emotional intelligence is the basis for us to feel more satisfied with ourselves.

However,  there is a fundamental element: happiness is a multidimensional area. In it, aspects such as our affective and social relationships, having achieved certain goals, living according to our values, having a daily life in which we do not feel fear or anguish and feel fulfilled, among other things, are integrated.

Emotional intelligence is not the answer to everything, but it drives and helps achieve many of these aspects. In addition, this quality alone will not prevent losses, disappointments, failures … The unhappiness is also part of life and we must accept it knowing that it is not permanent.

Emotional intelligence will help us manage these states so that we can move into the acceptance stages; to those cycles where, although happiness is not absolute, everything hurts less and we allow ourselves to have new opportunities. That’s the secret.