Last update: February 18, 2015
Alexander the Great said: “Knowing yourself is the most difficult thing because it involves our rationality, but also our fears and our passions. If someone knows himself deeply, he will be able to understand others and the reality that surrounds him ”.
Self-knowledge and interpersonal intelligence
We cannot blame Alexander the Great because through self-knowledge we learn to move adequately on the path of life. Really knowing how we are, what we feel or what goal we want to achieve are skills that are associated with interpersonal intelligence.
Having interpersonal intelligence means understanding who we are, knowing how to identify our emotions and behave accordingly. Skills that allow us to regulate our behaviors, solve problems effectively and make decisions. With self-knowledge we learn to identify our great abilities, but also our limitations. This helps us plan goals in a realistic way to avoid possible future frustrations. People with interpersonal intelligence know how to dominate emotions and adapt them to circumstances.
Enhance interpersonal intelligence
Can you work on interpersonal intelligence? If you are interested in growing internally and learning more about yourself, you can do a series of exercises that will help you to enhance this type of intelligence.
• Control your emotions - this is a skill you need to learn to develop. Controlling does not mean not feeling, but knowing how to react adequately to emotions or feelings. Learn to identify negative emotions to turn them into positive. For example: you feel angry. Analyze the reason that makes you feel this way and try to understand why. A trick: learn to laugh about it so that even negative emotions turn into positive ones.
• Take an Inner Journey: Erich Fromm used to say that “Self-knowledge begins with self-acceptance. Accept yourselves and you will get to know each other better ”. Make a list of your virtues and another of your faults. Ask a friend to do the same to find out what their image of you is. Compare both lists and try to improve on what you don't like.
• Take Action: Observe how your emotions affect your moods and look for the best way to change the negative aspects into positive ones. Write down the behaviors that make you feel bad on a piece of paper and think about how to solve them. For example: when you are sad, what can you do to change this feeling? Talk to a friend about it and put it into practice.
• Accept yourselves for what you are: Jean-Jacques Rousseau said that: "No one can be happy if he does not appreciate himself". Analyze what your abilities and limitations are. Set yourself simple goals to achieve based on these. This will strengthen your self-esteem and help you accept yourself as you are.
• Understand: write down over a period of time how you feel during the day. When you get up, in the middle of the morning, at noon, in the afternoon and before going to sleep. Try to understand what are the causes of the various emotions.
Follow these simple tips and you will realize how, through self-knowledge, you will improve relationships with yourself and with others. Because as Jorge Bucay says “Only by knowing who we are can we begin to be better for ourselves and for others”.
