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Emotional Intelligence is an art, skill, or capacity to identify and control feelings and emotions within oneself or others. There has been a lot of researches carried out on emotional intelligence to evaluate its significance. Some researchers believe that it can be learned while others say that it is an inborn characteristic. Whatever it is but truly an important factor that makes you successful.

The topic of emotional intelligence is now included as a subject in psychology as it holds a great importance in an individual`s life. Emotional intelligence refers as your emotional control, which helps you build strong relationships, succeed at work, and achieve your goals. Emotional intelligence is as important as intellectual intelligence. Intellectual intelligence helps you grab opportunities while emotional intelligence helps you to convert those opportunities in success. Understanding emotional intelligence is not simple, but it is essential as it relates to your happiness. Intellectual Intelligence helps you achieve good academics but emotional intelligence helps you achieve personal and social appreciation.

Emotional Intelligence exactly means knowing what feels good, what feels bad, and how to get good throughout the bad. Other then that it refers to emotional management skills, which provide competency to balance emotions and reason to maximize long term happiness. This concept was introduced by Reuven Bar On in 1988 in his doctoral dissertation while this term was first used by  two American psychologists named as Peter Salovey (Yale University) and John Mayer (University of New Hampshire).

Daniel Goleman, an internationally renowned psychologist, has always provided a broader approach towards Emotional Intelligence. His writings and public speaking make this term effective. He presented five different dimensions of Emotional Intelligence, which are stated as under:

1)Self Awareness: Recognize one`s emotions as well as its effects on those around us.
2)Self Regulation: The ability to control one`s impulsive judgement and reaction.
3)Self Motivation: The ability to pursue goals persistently.
4)Empathy: The ability to empathize with emotional state of others and respond accordingly.
5)Social Skills: The ability to network and build rapport with others. 

These dimensions  make this very clear that life cannot be made good without the understanding of emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence in Personal Life: We undergo a lot of emotions in our personal lives which make us cry, laugh, angry, love, surprise and others. We in our daily life experience these emotions which help us to represent our feelings and mood. An emotionally intelligent individual can lead a better life as he/she does not become tensed on small things and take simple tasks as achievements. For an emotional intelligent individual only great marks, big achievements, and well paid jobs are not among the source of joy but small activities and fun moments with family makes them happy. They find happiness in social activities and family functions. Their control over emotions and life make them live happily.   

Emotional Intelligence at Workplace: Workplace is something where you have to consider a lot of things. You need to regulate your emotions. As businesses are run by people so to achieve success the people should be emotionally intelligent. To achieve something you have to work in a team in your workplace, and this is followed by emotions such as teamwork, partnership, communication, leadership. It’s about consistently excelling and it’s about knowing how to do it. Emotional Intelligence at workplace means relationships between colleagues, between directors and staff, and between the organization and its customers, stakeholders, suppliers, competitors, networking contacts, and what not.
The emotional intelligent people at a workplace persist in qualities such as  self motivation, efficient, productive, committed, and confident. An organization with emotionally intelligent staff can become successful in a short time and there will no conflicts and arguments raised at any point of time.  A study on insurance sector shows that insurance salesperson who were optimists sold 37% more insurance policies in their first two years then did pessimists. Emotional Intelligence makes you successful in whatever you do. One can always promote emotional intelligence at workplace through assessing the organization needs, assessing the individual, delivering assessments with care, maximizing learning choice, encouraging participation, linking goals and personal values, adjusting individual expectations, assessing readiness and motivation for EQ development.  

One can develop emotional intelligence within himself/herself by upgrading emotional skills, by distinguishing  between thoughts and feelings, by taking responsibility for your feelings, by taking decisions according  to your feelings, by taking the help of feelings to set and achieve goals, don`t remain angry, respect others feelings, never criticize or judge others. Once you set these thing in your mind you will be able to develop emotional intelligence at any stage of life. Emotional Intelligence can make your life even more enjoyable and happy.

There are some myths/facts about Emotional Intelligence such as:

Being EI does not mean a weak, submissive or defensive personality.
Being highly EI does not not mean being extra nice, polite or sugar coating your language
The females are NOT superior to males in expressing/experiences emotions as most of us tend to believe incorrectly. In fact, the research shows that males are equally emotional when compared to females.
There is no direct evidence to prove that EI is dependent upon heredity.
However, the environment does seem to influence the EI.

EI is a personal trait which can be achieved whenever you want. Every single individual has a different emotional intelligence which cannot be compared to others, but it can always be improved. Being successful carries a different meaning for every single individual thus everyone has a different EI. Different models have been presented by various researchers to describe emotional intelligence and its other prospects. Some famous  models of EI are:
Ability EI Model
Trait EI Model
Mixed Models of EI

All these models describe the effects of emotional intelligence on one`s life.