Do you know that wholesome relationships are mostly the result of what’s within you? Thus, improving them almost always requires coming to grips with your emotional intelligence — or, perhaps, your lack thereof. After all, if you are not fully aware of your own emotional landscape, how can you recognize what others feel and experience? How can you really connect with them?

If you don’t have nurturing relationships, you need to decide if you want to continue your old ways and go on without them or if you want to start acting in ways that allow you to obtain them. No doubt, your old patterns were learned and established over many years, and it will be hard to unlearn them. However, “hard” is not “impossible.” So, do you want to take on the “hard” and make your life more rewarding and satisfying, or are you OK with just muddling along with the same old patterns?

Interpersonal relationship skills are part of your emotional intelligence, and the good news is that the key skills for improving them can be learned.

Well-developed relationships can serve as a “litmus test” for your emotional intelligence. If you have good emotional intelligence, this will be reflected in the number and quality of your relationships. People with well-developed emotional intelligence have more healthy, deeper and satisfying relationships. Because these kinds of relationships result in a better sense of well-being and happiness, they are an important part of your emotional make-up.

So, check in with yourself. How are you doing? Do you have relationships that improve your quality of life and create a safe harbor from pressures and stresses? If not, you need to work on improving your emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills.

You can do this by focusing on the Four Es, as follows:

Being Aware Of Your Relationship Environment

Your environment is usually made up of who is around you (e.g., family and friends, co-workers, networking communities, etc.). You must be aware of where, how and when to appropriately start, continue and end interactions within these environments. How you comport yourself will be much different depending on the milieu.