If You Can Answer ‘Yes’ to Any of These 5 Questions, Your Emotional Intelligence Is Perfectly Suited for This Crisis

With COVID-19 comes new opportunities to showcase your emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence has been projected to trend by 2022 as one of the top 10 job skills required for workers to thrive, according to the World Economic Forum.

Already in demand as a desired workplace quality for several years, emotional intelligence (EQ) is now being heralded as a crucial people skill to help navigate turbulent waters in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.

1. Are you regularly displaying empathy?

People are scared. To help alleviate suffering, exercising your EQ helps you to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within his or her frame of reference, whether a customer or fellow employee. Having the capacity to empathize with someone else’s experience or challenge is key for uniting teams and banding together with peers and coworkers as we face new realities together.

2. Are you showing optimism in the face of uncertainty?

With unprecedented events comes the opportunity to show unprecedented optimism. Show it by being that beacon of light piercing the dark by lifting people up and encouraging those under distress.

Be the person that shows gratitude for technology, flexibility, and having access to instant information to make the right decisions.

Be the person who praises the efforts of courageous and resilient colleagues who are being productive and making work happen under extreme adversity.

Be the person who shows optimism by taking responsibility for your actions and finding solutions to problems. By doing so, you are helping yourself and others. This is the emotionally intelligent thing to do.

3. Are you being flexible in the new normal?

4. Are you managing your distressing emotions well?

Stress is a normal part of life. But it has elevated to heights we’ve never imagined. To deal with possible disruptions that may be related to stress, such as sadness, confusion, irritability, anger, or reduced concentration and productivity, the first step is to understand your emotional state, acknowledge what you’re feeling, and recognize when symptoms are related to stress.

Now you’re in a position to manage your stress. For example, if you began noticing signs of increased stress since the Coronavirus outbreak, chances are you’re experiencing a normal stress response — stress related to concerns about catching the virus, stress about loss of work, or stress related to managing the kids at him on top of work! By staying in tune with what you’re experiencing on a day-to-day basis, you can manage what you can and release control of the things you cannot.

5. Are you adapting smoothly to changing realities?

Now more than ever we can leverage the power of emotional intelligence to stay grounded, not panic, and put our focus toward building the future we want for our businesses and communities.

First, accept the reality that this is, for now, the new normal and that life will go on. Next, embrace change with open arms. As humans, it’s normal for us to struggle with change, as with it come fear and anxiety. However, exercising your EQ with self-empathy and self-compassion will help you to adjust more easily through uncomfortable transitions.

To do that, suspending the negative self-talk and your own self-judgment, and rejecting the lies you tell yourself are critical to building self-compassion. Remember, thoughts come and go, and feelings change. As you adapt to your new world by treating yourself with patience and kindness, know that this too shall pass.