Much has been written about gaining self-confidence to boost your success in career and relationships. Everyone knows that without self-confidence, you remain insecure and out of touch with others – and yourself.

Emotional intelligence breeds healthy emotions and, unlike IQ, can be developed and practiced over time. Practicing the EQ techniques will help you make better life choices and improve your relationships at work and home and become an exceptional leader of others.

To have self-confidence, you must become self-aware – that is, knowing what makes you tick. You are aware of why you have emotional responses and know how to manage them in the most effective manner possible.

For example, many people have triggers that take them from mild-mannered to angry in a second. With emotional intelligence, you’ll know where that anger comes from and be able to channel it in a way that is positive rather than negative.

The empathy you show for others is also a factor in developing self-confidence. When you understand why others are emotional and can mentally put yourself in their shoes, you are more able to relate to the causes of the emotions and respond more effectively.

You become a more self-confident person who is able to communicate with others and turn situations around from being awkward and unpleasant to understanding and connecting.

As a result of building your emotional intelligence, you’ll be able to build relationships with others. The process of navigating through emotions that factor in to all relationships takes all the elements that emotional intelligence provides.

Emotional intelligence must be understood and practiced to become skills that help you in your quest for success. You can build on these skills by focusing your intentions on developing and utilizing them to make you a better person.

Self-confidence can spur you on to become motivated in setting and achieving the goals you desire in life. With higher emotional intelligence, you become more willing to give up simple, short-term success for the vision you have for your entire life.

Better communication between the rational and emotional parts of your brain becomes easier with emotional intelligence and keeps you emotions from taking control and responding in a negative manner.

You’ll gain a self-confident perspective that lets you believe that you can be a success in life and let nothing stop you from reaching the goals you’ve set for yourself. The level of your emotional intelligence directly affects how you perform in life.

When you truly invest yourself in developing your emotional intelligence, it can transform your life – both personally and professionally – and ensure the self-confidence you need to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself.