1. Emotions can impede our judgement or make us act irrationally. Sometimes we act suddenly before we have the chance to judge a situation clearly. When information enters our brain, a fraction of it bypasses the region responsible for rational thought – the neocortex – and directly enters the emotional brain- and directly enters the emotional brain. If it perceives this information to be a threat to us, the emotional brain can trigger us to act suddenly, without consulting our thinking brain.
2. Emotional intelligence allows you to recognise and manage your feelings without being controlled by them. The first aspect of emotional intelligence is being able to recognise and name your feelings. Emotional intelligence then helps you concentrate on achieving certain goals. For example, imagine that you need to write a paper for university, You don’t really like the subject matter and you’d much rather go to a film festival instead. Emotional intelligence can help you manage these various feelings. Although the subject matter bores you, you could try to look at it from another angle. Maybe there is one aspect of the subject that enthuses you. Also, knowing how the film festival will make you feel, you can defer the gratification and save your potential enjoyment until you have time for it.

Students who manage their workloads in this way tend to do well at school even if they have average IQs.

3. Emotional intelligence enables you to behave in ways which evoke favourable reactions from others. For example, imagine you are the manager of a company where one member of staff is constantly making the same mistakes. You’ll need to tell him about this and get him to change, but you have to do it in the right way. If you hurt his feelings, he may become angry or defensive, and less likely to make the changes you desire. If you empathise with him and imagine how he will feel, you can act in a way which makes him more willing to change.

4. To become self-motivated, start thinking like this: people who can convince themselves that failures are due to something they can change don’t give up so easily. They continue to try because they believe that a successful outcome depends on their own actions.