What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence (or Emotional quotient EQ), is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to manage stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.
Five key elements of emotional intelligence
| Self-awareness | Self-regulation | Motivation | Empathy | Social skills |
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| The ability to identify and name your own emotions. | The ability to harness and apply those emotions. | Personal drive to improve and achieve | Ability to recognize and understand how others feel | These are skills needed to influence other peoples emotions effectively. |
Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences.
In order to build resilience in the workplace, you must:
- Develop strong relationships with others.
Build strong relationships with your employer and other employees by communicating effectively, actively listening and building trust. - Manage stress and burnout.
Take care of your physical and psychological health. This means taking breaks, getting a good nights rest, communicating with your employer when you start to feel stress and taking time out. - Be authentic.
Be yourself. - Develop grit.
Set short- and long-term goals within the workplace. - Find purpose.
Find purpose in your life and workplace. This could be through problem solving, helping others, achieving goals, taking opportunities, and reflecting. - Embrace healthy thinking.
Keep things in perspective and avoid irrational thinking.
In the science, a theory is more than just a guess. It is a “coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation” (Scientific theory, n.d.).
A theory is important to understand why people choose to practice health promoting behaviours or not. Help identify what information is necessary to design an effective intervention strategy and to provide insight on how to develop a successful program.
They help to explain behaviour and also suggest how to develop strategies to influence and change it.
Testability is an important factor of a theory however social sciences are better understood as models that work in a limited range of settings rather than laws of science that apply universally.
These models include:
| Theory - broad | Theory models | Framework – types of wellbeing |
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There is no sole determinant of an individual’s wellbeing but broadly it is dependent on good physical health, positive relationships and access to basic resources.
There is no single definition of wellbeing. In general, at a minimum, it is the presence of positive emotions and moods, and the absence of negative emotions, satisfaction in life, fulfilment and positive functioning.
It is subjective. Factors such as genetics, personality and demographic are related to results.
Positive psychology is a scientific study of what makes life most worth living.
Positive psychology:
- Focuses on the character strengths and behaviours that allow you to build a life of meaning and purpose.
- Aims to help you become happier and healthier.
- Centred on helping people flourish.
Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life living for us as humans. It focuses on the behaviours that allow us as humans, to build a meaningful life that has purpose. It helps people become happier and healthier. Positive psychology is focused around helping people flourish rather than focusing on dysfunction or abnormal behaviour.
Three pillars of positive psychology
- Positive experiences
- Positive individual traits
- Positive institutions
