Improve Your Emotional Intelligence to Further Your Career

Emotional intelligence can be important to your career in many different ways. Those who score high on a scale measuring emotional intelligence make on average $29,000 more a year than those who don’t, so anything you can do to improve this trait could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your career.

Some people seem to be born with emotional intelligence, but fortunately, it is possible to develop the traits that make up this larger one. The first step is learning about emotional intelligence and determining your strengths and weaknesses in that area.

Emotional Intelligence: The Basics

The first step to emotional intelligence is self-awareness. Those who are self-aware understand their own thoughts and feelings, which gives them the information they need to know why they act the way they do in certain situations. Improving your emotional intelligence also starts with self-awareness because you can’t improve until you understand what’s going on in your mind and heart.

Self-awareness leads to social awareness, which is an understanding of other people’s thoughts and emotions. If you don’t understand why other people are doing what they’re doing, you will be at a disadvantage in figuring out how to communicate with them on their level. Some social awareness comes with time and experience, but it can be taught as well.

Self-management is another part of EI, and it uses your self-understanding to direct your behavior in positive and constructive ways. Finally, relationship management is directing your interactions with others so that they are successful and productive rather than hurtful.

How to Improve Emotional Intelligence

The foundation of EI is understanding yourself, which requires time and thought, and sometimes professional help. Taking a course in EI will help you identify the emotions and thought patterns that drive your behavior and teach you how to journal about them if you wish to do so. If you come across any emotions or behaviors you don’t seem to be able to understand or negative patterns you can’t break, professional counseling may help give more insight.

Learning how to analyze your interactions with others will also help you improve your EI and adopt more advantageous ways of dealing with others, which will be of great benefit in the workplace where relationships are key. It may seem like emotions should have no place in business, but many interactions and decisions are driven by emotions and it is important to understand them and learn how to use them in constructive ways.

Improving your EI because it will help your career is a fine motivation, but greater EI will also make you happier in your personal life, too. It’s a win-win, and well worth working on through courses or other efforts.

CCSU offers many courses to improve your career prospects, including courses on emotional intelligence in the workplace. View our open courses to see how they can benefit your career.

Trends in Continuing Education and How They May Affect Your Career

Like so many things in today’s world, continuing education is continuing to change and evolve in order to be more effective at meeting the needs of those who use it. Many people pursue continuing education in order to enrich or improve their careers, keep skills updated, or pursue beneficial certifications. Trends in continuing education make it even more beneficial to its participants.

Online and Mobile Education

Students now expect online and mobile education platforms as options for continuing education because they have busy careers, children, and other things in their lives that limit their time and availability. The flexibility and convenience of these options make them preferrable to many people, and most continuing education programs could no longer survive without them.

Virtual Conferences

Not everyone can afford to go to conferences in their field that may require travel and hotel stays on top of the conference’s cost. Virtual conferences may be simulcast to many locations or available online, possibly on demand so they can be viewed at participants’ convenience. Networking, which is always an important part of any conference, can be accomplished through chatrooms and social media or email groups specialized to the conference.

Microlearning

Microlearning usually involves video content that is broken up into brief lessons rather than longer ones. Microlearning works well for those who are very busy and don’t have much time for continuing education as well as for those with certain learning styles that work better when learning in short bursts.

Open Courses

Sometimes called MOOCs (massive online open courses), these are typically open to anyone and provide basic information on a topic of interest. Many of them are offered free and only involve a cost if you want to earn a certificate or credential when the course is completed. Some MOOCs can involve thousands of students, so they can be a good option for some, but not for those who need extra help or modifications.

Customized Courses and Help for Those With Learning Disabilities

Courses with smaller enrollments can offer customized lesson plans to fit your needs and can often accommodate modifications for those with learning disabilities who need extra help. Customized courses target information that may be needed for a particular job and ensure that everything is in compliance with requirements that can be specific or different in different areas.

Self-Directed Learning

Similar to customized learning, self-directed learning can be both self-paced and allow each student to determine the learning objectives and outcomes that they most need. Self-directed learning also has the benefit of allowing students to pursue interests that not everyone shares, so that their learning objectives can be met.

CCSU offers many different kinds of continuing education courses that incorporate the latest trends and provide valuable skills to benefit a variety of careers. View open courses to see how CCSU continuing education courses can help you stay up to date or take your career to the next level.