Emotional Intelligence is an approach to life and not so much a quantifiable personality stat. We can think of it as a toolkit to help us live with the complex trials and tribulations of being a person in a chaotic world. The purpose of the toolkit is to help us know ourselves, focus on the present and steer away from negative and critical thoughts.

Keep reading for some thoughts on those three pillars.

Pillar 1: Know yourself

At first this can be a daunting challenge - trying to define yourself is tricky. You might start by listing your hobbies, the places you like to go, the way you dress and express yourself. These are all valid thoughts and are part of who you are. But to get a better picture, we need to focus on how we interact with the world emotionally.

Fostering our Emotional Intelligence allows us to be more aware of our emotional triggers and how we react to situations, feelings and ideas.

It can be as simple as acknowledging that certain situations trigger feelings of anxiety, for example. This ability alone is good to have, but it becomes incredibly useful when we use that self-knowledge to think of ways to mitigate the power that emotion has over our wellbeing. It won't make the anxiety go away, but it is a step toward being able to live with it as a less destructive emotion.

Being familiar with that trigger makes it easier to spot when it has been set off. The act of naming a thing as an passive observer, can give you the emotional distance and breathing space you need to get through the situation with your emotional resilience intact.

Fostering our Emotional Intelligence allows us to be more aware of our emotional triggers and how we react to situations, feelings and ideas.

Pillar 2: Mindfulness and focussing on the present

Our ability to remember things and plan ahead are defining features of being human, they allow us to build bonds with people, places, things and have dreams and aspirations; they allow us to build an identity. While they are truly amazing strengths, they come with potentially severe draw backs.

If left alone to do its own thing, our brain will often focus on bad, sometimes debilitating memories or anxieties and replay them on repeat, leading to rumination and nothing positive. If you've experienced this, you may also have experienced that loop being broken by an immediate distraction - the sink flooding, someone giving you a surprise hug, a pizza arriving.

There is a very valuable learning we can take from that moment of distraction: Living in the present moment can feel a lot better!

This is where mindfulness practice comes in. It is a way of training our attention to stay focussed on the present, without needing to rely on a crutch like pizza, or something a lot more dire like addiction to escape our ruminations.

Mindfulness practice often takes the form of meditation; or focussing on something inherently linked with the present, such as your breathing or a candle, for an extended period of time and gently bringing yourself back as your mind wanders.

The result is very similar to how working out your biceps regularly makes it easier to lift a heavy weight. Instead of lifting a heavy weight, mindfulness practice makes it easier to lead your wandering mind back to the present.

When it comes to studying, working, or fulfilling any activity that requires concentration, that ability to willfully focus becomes a truly powerful tool.

Pillar 3: Positive self-talk

Self-awareness and focussing on the present allows us to add another tool to our Emotional Intelligence toolkit: moderating negative and critical thoughts.

Self-awareness and the ability to lead thoughts back to the present are essential to stop negative self talk.

When a voice pops into your head saying "You can't do this, you will never solve this JavaScript loop alone, you're dumb", self-knowledge allows you to acknowledge that thought, and the ability to focus on the present helps you identify it as a distracting thought.

Once you've 'logged' this distraction you can focus on breaking it down, by asking questions like:

"How does not knowing make you dumb? You're here to learn new things."

Or:

"This is a new thing, of course you don't know it. Ask for help!"

A good way to practice this positive self-talk is to pretend you are talking to a loved one that you really care about. Would you tell your loved one that they're dumb for not instantly knowing something new? Of course not, you would instinctively be encouraging because you want the best for them.

To summarise what we've talked about:

• Emotional Intelligence is not quantifiable, you can't have an EQ of 180.
• Emotional Intelligence is a toolkit.
• Being aware of yourself, your strengths, weaknesses and triggers is essential fot growing your Emotional Intelligences.
• Mindfulness practice gives us the strength to not be bogged down my the past or future. It helps us focus on the present.
• Positive self-talk is crucial to growth and progress.

Things to try:

• Find a way to acknowledge your strengths, weaknesses and triggers. (Keep a journal, talk to friends or family, got for a walk and have a think)
• Try out some basic breathing meditations to get a taste for Mindfulness practice.
• Also, try thinking positive thoughts about other people and situations and see when benefits come, then do it for yourself.