Boosting Your Eq: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Emotional Intelligence to Become More Successful In Life, Love, and Career

After a few days, your answers to these questions may look something like this:
I am a bad person and no one loves me.
I got in a big fight with my husband.
I have a loving husband who demonstrates his love to me every day with some random acts of attention.
I still would be a bad person and no one would love me. If my belief is true, nothing would really change much.
I would start realizing that I am not a bad person and people actually love me. This means that I am not a bad person and people do love me.

include it into your daily routine for at least 3-4 weeks. Start by asking yourself the following questions:
What self-defeating, negative thoughts do I want to get rid of?
What specific things is this negative thought based on?
What counter evidence is there that shows how this belief is false (or at least overly exaggerated)?
What is the worst thing that could happen to me if this belief turns out to be true?
What is the best thing that could happen to me if this belief turns out to be false?

This must be my body telling me that I love her.
After you have completed this part you can continue to the most important part of the method.
3) Searching for patterns (Duration: 1-2 days)
When finishing the sampling phase of the descriptive experience sampling, you will again need to review your notes. This time you should not focus on each individual entry, but rather your personal experiences during those two weeks in general. The main point of this phase is to identify your emotions in a particular situation and the behaviors or physical sensations that were associated with them.
First, you will have to focus on yourself, your emotions and how they connect to your behavior. Secondly, you will need to focus on the emotions and behavior of the other people that were involved in the situation. If your entry included a coworker, who was angrily staring at you because you started to ignore him in order to finish your entry, try to figure out what made him act like that and what he was feeling at the time.
At this point, this shouldn’t be too difficult to do. After all, your ability to perceive emotions in yourself and in others (or in other words your level of emotional intelligence) should have increased enough to do this properly. You will also start to notice how your increased emotional awareness has started to improve your relationships with others.

start sampling your personal experience you will need an alarm clock or a mobile application that will remind you to write a note about your temporary emotions seven times a day. If your time does not allow you to do so many repetitions, try to do it at least five times a day.
The best option is to set your alarm at random hours during each day. Doing it at different times each day will make sure that you aren’t consciously aware of when you have to write it down. If you do it at the same time, it’ll become a habit and you’ll start to regulate your emotions when that time is approaching.
You will also need a notebook that you can write all of your observations in. After setting 5 to 7 alarms for the first day, you can begin with the exercise. Every time your alarm or your mobile application goes off, you will have to stop whatever you were doing at the moment and focus on exactly how you are feeling in that moment.
Always pay attention to how you experience and feel something instead of just what you are feeling. Of course it is important also to note down what are you feeling and experiencing at a particular moment but to really increase your emotional intelligence you will have to learn to identify how you are experiencing it. At the end of the first week your notebook should contain seven (or at least five) entries, similar to this one:
I was walking down the street. A car passed by. Crazy driver, he was too fast, he almost hit me. I want to go after him. I feel so angry. My vain in my forehead is pulsing. I feel a strange sensation in my stomach. Maybe I am afraid. I am breathing heavily. I almost died. It’s probably both.
After 1-2 weeks of entries like this (with 5-7 per day); you can continue to the next phase which will help you understand what is going on with your emotions.
2) Reviewing your notes (Duration: 1 day)
After the first stage of writing down your emotions, you will need to go through your notes. This phase includes the self-remembering method, described in the previous section. Go through every entry you have made and try to recapture it.
Try to understand, why you felt the way you did and how it influenced your behavior and thoughts. Add any new observations you have to the notes and prepare for a new week of sampling. New observations might be things like “I got so angry about that car because it probably reminded me of the time my dog was hit by a car when I was a kid.” It can also just be as simple as noting the primary emotion (like fear) that was at the root of your anger.
When you start the process over for the next week, use the knowledge that you have gained about yourself so far and be really exact. This time your notes should look a little more like this:
I feel a strange sensation in my stomach. It’s not hunger, I just ate. It is kind of sharp but warm at the same time. I’m thinking about my girlfriend. Probably this sensation is connected with my thoughts. I love her.

While getting in touch with your emotions is an important first step, becoming emotionally independent from other people’s feeling can open a new window, new insight on building meaningful relationships.

The act of learning loses its meaning when the new knowledge is not applied to new situations.

e) Link prior learning with new experience

If you have big dreams, you need to break them down into smaller, more manageable steps and focus on each step as it appears in front of you.

Regardless of the fact that you already have the knowledge of how to monitor and manage your emotions and feelings, expectations you might have for the future can influence the way you feel now and your ability to manage your current emotions.

Focus on what is important now