9 Things Emotionally Intelligent People Won't Do

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9 Things Emotionally Intelligent People Won't Do

My last article, How Successful People Stay Calm, really struck a nerve (it has more than a million reads here on Forbes).

The trick is that managing your emotions is as much about what you won’t do as it is about what you will do. My company, TalentSmart, has tested the emotional intelligence of more than a million people, so I went back to the data to uncover the kinds of things that emotionally intelligent people are careful to avoid in order to keep themselves calm, content, and in control. They consciously avoid these behaviors because they are tempting and easy to fall into if one isn’t careful.

While the list that follows isn’t exhaustive, it presents nine key things that you can avoid in order to increase your emotional intelligence:



They Won’t Let Anyone Limit Their Joy

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from comparing yourself to others, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or accomplishments take that away from them.

While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain—you’re never as good or bad as they say you are.

They Won’t Forget

Emotionally intelligent people are quick to forgive, but that doesn’t mean that they forget. Forgiveness requires letting go of what’s happened so that you can move on. It doesn’t mean you’ll give a wrongdoer another chance. Emotionally intelligent people are unwilling to be bogged down unnecessarily by others’ mistakes, so they let them go quickly and are assertive in protecting themselves from future harm.

They Won’t Die in the Fight

Emotionally intelligent people know how important it is to live to fight another day. In conflict, unchecked emotion makes you dig your heels in and fight the kind of battle that can leave you severely damaged. When you read and respond to your emotions, you’re able to choose your battles wisely and only stand your ground when the time is right.

They Won’t Prioritize Perfection

Emotionally intelligent people won’t set perfection as their target because they know it doesn’t exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. When perfection is your goal, you’re always left with a nagging sense of failure, and you end up spending your time lamenting what you failed to accomplish and what you should have done differently instead of enjoying what you were able to achieve.

They Won’t Live in the Past

Failure can erode your self-confidence and make it hard to believe you’ll achieve a better outcome in the future. Most of the time, failure results from taking risks and trying to achieve something that isn’t easy. Emotionally intelligent people know that success lies in their ability to rise in the face of failure, and they can’t do this when they’re living in the past. Anything worth achieving is going to require you to take some risks, and you can’t allow failure to stop you from believing in your ability to succeed. When you live in the past, that is exactly what happens, and your past becomes your present, preventing you from moving forward.

They Won’t Dwell on Problems

Where you focus your attention determines your emotional state. When you fixate on the problems that you’re facing, you create and prolong negative emotions and stress, which hinders performance. When you focus on actions to better yourself and your circumstances, you create a sense of personal efficacy that produces positive emotions and improves performance. Emotionally intelligent people won’t dwell on problems because they know they’re most effective when they focus on solutions.

They Won’t Hang Around Negative People

Complainers are bad news because they wallow in their problems and fail to focus on solutions. They want people to join their pity party so that they can feel better about themselves. People often feel pressure to listen to complainers because they don’t want to be seen as callous or rude, but there’s a fine line between lending a sympathetic ear and getting sucked into their negative emotional spiral. You can avoid getting drawn in only by setting limits and distancing yourself when necessary. Think of it this way: if a person were smoking, would you sit there all afternoon inhaling the second-hand smoke? You’d distance yourself, and you should do the same with complainers. A great way to set limits is to ask complainers how they intend to fix a problem. The complainer will then either quiet down or redirect the conversation in a productive direction.

They Won’t Hold Grudges

The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Just thinking about the event involved sends your body into fight-or-flight mode. When a threat is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when a threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. In fact, researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Holding onto a grudge means you’re holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs. Learning to let go of a grudge will not only make you feel better now but can also improve your health.

They Won’t Say Yes Unless They Really Want To

Research conducted at the University of California in San Francisco shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is indeed a major challenge for most people. “No” is a powerful word that you should not be afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases like “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/03/26/9-things-emotionally-intelligent-people-wont-do/#1e13331a9b76

Raggamuffin wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

My point is that nobody could live by that list unless they're very robotic. Lists of how to be a perfect person are always doomed to fail.

not mocking your faith  

but you just explained one of the reasons i prefer ideas like the great rainbow serpent over abrahamic god.
This list like any list including the commandment etc is an attempt to create order in a chaotic universe

surely it is easier just to accept/embrace that we exist in a chaotic universe
thus maybe perfection is in the chaos of chaos and not the attempt to find order in it.

to be human is to be chaotic because we have evolved to live in a chaotic universe.

I think I agree with that. Having a list of how to be an emotionally intelligent person is just stupid. People are what they are and they're not going to change. One can try not to care about things you can't change, and try to control your feelings to an extent. If that fails, just get drunk instead.

I think more can be said from the logical process people use to deal with things.
Some people just whinge or just blame and never offer a solution.


analysis/acceptance of the situation
"People are what they are"
and possible solution
"just get drunk instead."

I RECKON that these assinine "don't do"/"how to" lists of the kind like with the nonsense in the OP must often be drawn up by some little misery guts who just wishes that the rest of the world would act/think the way that that (s)he  would like them to...        

veya_victaous wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

I think I agree with that. Having a list of how to be an emotionally intelligent person is just stupid. People are what they are and they're not going to change. One can try not to care about things you can't change, and try to control your feelings to an extent. If that fails, just get drunk instead.

I think more can be said from the logical process people use to deal with things.
Some people just whinge or just blame and never offer a solution.


analysis/acceptance of the situation
"People are what they are"
and possible solution
"just get drunk instead."

I thought it was a good solution.

Didge wrote:

Fuzzy Zack wrote:I'm talking about passion in its strict dictionary definition. Where you are on that borderline of losing emotional control.

Like getting drunk, it's fun but also dangerous.

I prefer enthusiasm.

Word of honest advice, never try to keep in check passionate mutual love, that will spell disaster for you.


Its never dangereous to be mutally and passionate in love with each other, as you have balance.

That never needs anything to check that love, its when it falls out of sinc of blanace that it does.

Lol! What the fuck are you going on about now, dip shit?

Don't project your problems with women on me.

Fuzzy Zack wrote:

Didge wrote:


Word of honest advice, never try to keep in check passionate mutual love, that will spell disaster for you.


Its never dangereous to be mutally and passionate in love with each other, as you have balance.

That never needs anything to check that love, its when it falls out of sinc of blanace that it does.

Lol! What the fuck are you going on about now, dip shit?

Don't project your problems with women on me.

See in every answer with me, your level of maturity is that of a teenage boy, where you think the best insults are based of relationships, anything sexually related etc, when someone points out aspects on a subject you simply understand zero about.
Its not only hilarious, but you must think you are witty and clever for doing so, when it just makes me think how you clearly are special.
In more ways than one