Why Everyone Needs Emotional Intelligence

Wayne Mylin
Jun 1
4 min read

The Inner Map That Guides the Journey

“Even the most seasoned explorer can lose their way without a map that makes sense of the terrain within.”

In the wilderness of life, it’s not enough to have a compass and a destination. To navigate the unexpected detours, shifting weather, and unseen obstacles of your personal journey, you need something more foundational—an internal map.

This map is called emotional intelligence, and it’s one of the most powerful tools in any explorer’s pack.

At My Best Life Coaching, we view emotional intelligence not as an ability you either have or don’t, but as one of the essential life navigation skills that can be developed, strengthened, and applied every day.

It’s the map that helps you understand your own inner landscape, the trails others are walking, and the path forward that feels most aligned with who you are and what matters most.

This month in the Explorer’s Journey program in My Best Life Basecamp, we’re mapping that terrain together with simple practices that can help you develop this skill.

Reading the Inner Terrain: What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (often referred to as EQ) is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions, as well as relate skillfully to the emotions of others. Like a detailed topographic map, EQ helps you see what’s really going on beneath the surface.

It includes five core areas:

Self-awareness: recognizing your emotional patterns and responses.
Self-regulation: managing your emotions so they don’t manage you.
Motivation: connecting your inner drive to your values and vision.
Empathy: understanding what others are feeling and why it matters.
Social skills: communicating, connecting, and repairing relationships when needed.

Without these, it’s easy to get lost in reaction, burn out trying to prove your worth, or pursue goals that don’t really belong to you.

Clarity Before the Climb: Emotional Intelligence and Goal Setting

So often, people set goals based on what they think they should do ... what culture, family, or fear whispers in their ear. But the explorer with emotional intelligence pauses before launching goals. They check their map.

They ask:

Does this goal align with my emotional needs?
Is it truly my needs that are being addressed with this goal?
What emotion(s) are fueling this decision—excitement, fear, guilt, longing?

Emotional intelligence brings clarity before the climb. It helps you discern whether you're chasing an illusion or responding to a deep, authentic call. When your goals are aligned with your internal map, the journey becomes more sustainable and more fulfilling.

Growth Through the Journey: EQ as the Fuel for Resilience

The road to personal growth is not always smooth. In fact, if you’re growing, you can expect discomfort. That’s not a failure—it’s the trail doing what it naturally does.

Emotional intelligence equips you to walk that trail with presence and purpose. It helps you:

Hold tension without collapsing.
Stay curious instead of reactive.
Learn from emotions rather than run from them.

When you cultivate emotional intelligence, you build your capacity to hold complexity—to feel fear and still take action, to sit with grief and still show up for life, to notice anger and find the wisdom underneath it.

This is what keeps you growing instead of circling the same trail over and over again.

Staying the Course: How EQ Helps You Achieve and Sustain What Matters

Many people reach a goal only to find themselves burned out or disconnected. Others lose momentum midway because they don’t know how to work with the emotional ups and downs that come with change.

Emotional intelligence helps you stay the course—not through rigid discipline, but through compassionate awareness. It teaches you how to:

Pace yourself based on internal cues, not just external demands.
Regulate overwhelm and keep taking small steps forward.
Recover from missteps without shame.
Reconnect with your why when the path gets steep.

In short, EQ isn’t just how you start the journey; it’s about how you finish it and maintain the change.

How to Start Strengthening Your Emotional Intelligence

You don’t need to become an expert overnight. This is a lifelong practice, and it begins with a few simple steps:

Daily check-ins: Ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now? Where do I feel it in my body? What might that feeling be trying to tell me?”
Journaling: Try prompts like, “What emotion shows up when I think about my goals?” or “What emotional patterns keep repeating for me?”
Empathy practice: In one conversation today, pause and really listen. Try to feel what the other person might be experiencing. Let that shape your response.

These small practices add up. They create your emotional map, layer by layer.

The Trailhead Awaits: Join Us This Month in Basecamp

This month in My Best Life Basecamp, we’re diving into emotional intelligence together. We’re exploring practices, sharing reflections, and developing the tools that allow us to read our inner terrain and navigate life with wisdom and grace.