Emotional Intelligence

You're empathic and supportive to your loved ones, but you're not skilled at changing your behavior to fit different situations.

Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, refers to your ability to recognize and manage your own emotions, as well as the emotions of the people in your life. You have a very good set of EQ skills, with above average scores on 4 of the 6 areas we examined.

Specifically, you showed promising skills in these three EQ domains:
You have good empathy skills. You genuinely try to understand what your loved ones are feeling and why they feel that way. At times, you actually feel their pain, fear, or excitement. You're not always as empathic as you'd like, especially if you're tired or preoccupied with your own worries. Still, your empathy for others has made you a better friend and confidante and motivated you to reach out to people who are suffering.

You always try to be as supportive as possible. You realize people cope with problems differently and need different types of support, so you do your best to understand where they are emotionally and what they need at that moment. Despite your good intentions, at times you may give advice when they just want you to listen; you may cut a friend off because you're too busy and distracted with your own problems. Still, unlike some people who lack basic support skills, you have good EQ skills and simply need the time and focus to use them. Therefore you may have to postpone connecting with a friend who needs your support until you can relax and put your own problems aside.

You manage stress reasonably well. You manage stressful situations pretty well. You know how important it is to keep a good attitude and avoid letting the situation wear you down emotionally and physically. At your best, you approach stressful events as an opportunity to prove yourself. Even when you feel angry and are tempted to lash out, you try to stay calm and focus on getting around whatever obstacle is in your way. As much as possible, you try to channel the influx of energy and emotions into solving problems and being productive.

Like most people, you still have room to improve your EQ. For example:
You're not always aware of people's hidden feelings and agendas. You know there's often a gap between what people say and what they really feel. However, you don't always pick up on these subtleties. This is partly because you try to mind your own business and not scrutinize everyone around you. You also aren't especially skilled at reading the hidden messages in people's facial expressions or posture. Like any skill, you can learn to be better at reading nonverbal communication. It often takes some training and lots of practice. First, you'd have to sell yourself on how improving your EQ could benefit your relationships and career.

Avoid Destructive Types of Anger

Chronic stress, at work or in a relationship, often provokes feelings of anger and expressions of hostility, which then make the situation even more stressful. Anger is a natural reaction to being frustrated in reaching your goals.

For women, it can be both a symptom and a source of unhappiness in relationships.

Here are some ideas for reducing the negative impact of anger:

Identify the source of your anger.
Is the person or event really the source of your anger, or is it coming from a different or much larger issue?

Ask yourself if there are better ways for you to accomplish your goals.
If someone or something is standing in your way, maybe you should go around the obstacle rather than fight it.

Channel your energy into a productive solution.
Anger helps motivate many women to take control of negative situations and not be a victim.

Distract yourself or take a break if anger is shutting you down.
Anger makes our bodies (and minds) go rigid, so we have to calm down in order to stay productive.