Emotionally intelligent people recognize their own and other people’s emotions, are able to discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, and use emotional information to guide their thinking and behavior. In short, emotionally intelligent people have a sense of what to avoid in order to maintain a calm, contented life. There are certain things you’d never catch emotionally intelligent people doing. Here are six:
#1. They don’t allow anyone to dictate their mood.
When you’re fulfilled by comparing yourself to others, you’re not a master of your own happiness. Emotionally intelligent people are happy with their accomplishments and don’t allow other people’s views to take that feeling away. Self-worth is an inside job and nobody’s opinions of you should be able to define your happiness or sadness.
#2. They’re not fooled more than once.
While emotionally intelligent people don’t hold onto a grudge, they don’t forget the sting of being fooled either. While forgiveness is the act of letting go and moving on, it doesn’t mean you should give the person another chance to fool you. Emotionally intelligent people learn their lessons wisely and assertively cut toxic people out of their lives.
#3. They don’t attempt perfection.
Emotionally intelligent people realize that perfection is impossible. When you realize that perfection doesn’t exist, you’ll start to take things a little easier. When you strive for perfection, you can’t be at peace because nothing will ever be good enough. You’ll feel a sense of failure and not enjoy any accomplishments. For those who let go of the idea of perfection, life becomes easier and a lot more pleasurable.
#4. They don’t let failure define them.
Emotionally intelligent people understand that success happens because of their ability to deal with failure. You have a choice when you fail. You can let it destroy your self-confidence and stop taking risks or you can keep on trying. After all, the road to success is full of failure. Failing doesn’t make you a failure. Indeed, success comes only when you learn from mistakes.
#5. They don’t surround themselves with negative people.
People with emotional intelligence don’t focus on negative things — they focus on solutions to problems. And while they’ll always be there offering support to friends who are going through a tough time, they won’t fall into negativity themselves. Emotionally intelligent people are compassionate, but not at their own expense. They don’t surround themselves with pessimists and toxic individuals, because they don’t want that negativity rubbing off on them.
#6. They don’t do things they don’t want to do.
An emotionally intelligent person wants to give back to the world but they also realize there’s a limit to how much they can accomplish. It’s a challenge to decline an invitation or a request for help but they’re never afraid to say ‘no’ and so tend to avoid burnout, stress, and depression. This means that emotionally intelligent people end up giving their 100% to the things they do commit to.