#3: How Can EQ Stop Burnout Before It Starts?

Burnout doesn’t come out of nowhere. It builds up overtime, slowly and steadily through stress, pressure, failure, and perfectionism—all until your brain just gives out. Your mind can’t keep up, so by default your body cannot either. Luckily, that’s where EQ comes in to play.

Emotional intelligence is able to teach you how to spot early signs of burnout. Do you find yourself snapping at people for no reason? Are you losing motivation? Or do you feel numb the instance something doesn’t go your way? These aren’t personality flaws—they’re emotional red flags. When you have EQ, you’re able to recognize such emotions before they erupt, and the most important of all, being able to respond to them. A study found that emotional clarity, which is the ability to understand what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling it, paired with emotional repair, your ability to bounce back from difficult situations, directly affects just how confident students feel in school. EQ is able to not only help people survive challenges, but also pushes you to keep believing in yourself throughout them.

Picture this: you fail a test in school. Endless thoughts are clouding your mind, something along the lines of “I suck at this”, “I can’t do this—I’m never going to be smart enough”, “What are my parents going to think?”, “How am I supposed to live after this?” These thoughts? The endless negativity stacked and stacked on top of each other—it can feel as though you’re drowning in your emotions with no sensible way out. But with EQ? You pause. You reflect. And you strategize. You strategize to see what to do better next time, what different ways to study in order to get a better result. And then you try again. Not because you’re emotionless—of course you’re frustrated, but that doesn’t stop you— because you’re emotionally aware.

Source: The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Social Work Students, 2024