Emotional intelligence has become a bigger topic in recent years, especially as artificial intelligence expands and raises questions about what parts of being human can actually be replaced. One of my classes this semester focused on emotional intelligence (EQ), and we even took a personal assessment.
My mom is a pediatric physical therapist and a life coach; she’s basically the living, breathing definition of emotional intelligence, and it’s something I look up to. So, a lot of the concepts felt familiar to me. Not to brag, but I did end up scoring the highest EQ in my class.
The Harvard definition of emotional intelligence is “a set of skills that help us recognize, understand, and manage our own emotions as well as recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others.” A common misconception is that EQ is only about ourselves — our ability to truly understand what we feel and control what we do about it.
Think about it this way: when you’re studying or working and notice your efforts aren’t productive anymore, you step away and take a break. That’s self-awareness and self-regulation. While meaningful, they are not the whole picture.
Social awareness and social skills are just as important; they are what allow us to connect with other people. Without them, we might think we are self-aware, but still be blind to how we affect others. This is why EQ is broken into four dimensions: self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and social skills.
Self-awareness is the ability to identify and understand our own emotions, as well as the impact they have on others. More than labeling how you feel, self-awareness is recognizing when your mood is starting to shape how you respond to someone else.
It’s about being honest with the effect you have on people. That might be uncomfortable and painful; it might bruise your ego. But without this honesty, self-awareness can turn into a surface-level exercise in which you know your emotions but don’t actually confront them or question where they came from.
Self-regulation is the ability to manage our emotions and behaviors. I believe this practice can be a slippery slope to emotional suppression, especially when disconnected from the ability to be vulnerable.
Self-regulation does not mean storing inconvenient feelings on the back shelf; it does not mean avoiding confrontation. It means showing up and holding yourself together when you need to, especially when nothing seems to be going your way. You still feel everything, but you choose when and how to express it so you aren’t damaging relationships, including the one you have with yourself.
Social awareness is the ability to identify and understand the emotions of others. This practice is very similar to empathy, or the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. But like self-awareness, it goes beyond the recognition of someone’s feelings; it’s picking up on tone shifts, body language, and what is not being said. It’s noticing when someone says, “I’m okay,” but obviously isn’t, and adjusting how we respond.
Social skills, or relationship management, are the ability to build and maintain healthy relationships; this is essentially where everything comes together. It’s how you communicate, navigate tension, and apply your awareness of yourself and others in real-time.
Not to be confused with people-pleasing, strong social skills translate into being intentional. We know when to listen, when to speak up, and how to handle challenging situations in a way that strengthens relationships.
Emotional intelligence shouldn’t be treated as a soft skill; it should be taught early and practiced often. In a world where so much is being automated, the ability to understand and express ourselves while building genuine connections is what keeps us human.
Emotional intelligence shapes how we show up in our day-to-day lives and weaves through the relationships we invest in.
It’s intentionality in action.
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