The Most Important Skillset for Behavior Change
There’s a belief I hold that sits underneath everything I coach, everything I teach, and everything I practice in my own life:
Emotional Intelligence is the most important skillset for behavior change.
Not mindset.
Not discipline.
Not willpower.
Emotional intelligence.
Most people think behavior change is about building better habits or finding the “right program.” But the real obstacle—the thing that keeps people stuck, repeating the same patterns, living below their potential—is internal resistance. And resistance is almost always emotional.
If you don’t understand your emotions, you can’t navigate resistance.
If you can’t navigate resistance, you can’t change your behavior.
If you can’t change your behavior, you can’t change your life.
This is why emotional intelligence matters more than anything else.
Emotion Drives Every Action You Take
Travis Bradberry puts it plainly in Emotional Intelligence 2.0:
“Whether you are aware of it or not, the motivation behind every action (no matter how small) is inherently emotional.”
Before your rational brain even has a seat at the table, your emotional brain has already ordered drinks, paid the bill, and taken the car keys.
Emotions spur you to act.
Your thoughts work to reinforce the action.
Bradberry continues:
“Your rational thoughts, driven by an understanding of your emotions, give you the opportunity to channel your emotions into producing the behavior you want. Without this awareness, your emotions are in control… they take the wheel and drive the bus, sometimes right off a cliff.”
This is the entire essence of emotional intelligence:
Seeing what you feel, so you can choose what you do.
Without that awareness?
Your emotions run the show. And they don’t always have your best interest in mind.
When Life Goes Right (and When It Goes Wrong)
Dr. Marc Brackett, Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, echoes this truth in Dealing with Feeling:
“Pretty much everything that has gone right in your life was the result of you having an intelligent, helpful response to an emotion you experienced.”
Read that again.
Everything that has gone right.
Then the other side:
“And nearly every time something went wrong…it was because you had an unwise reaction to what you felt.”
You don’t need another productivity hack.
You don’t need a stricter diet.
You don’t need a more complicated training plan.
You need to learn how to respond intelligently to what you feel.
Because once you can do that?
Your life opens up.
Brackett pushes one critical distinction:
“That does not mean we will try to control our emotions…but we can choose how we’ll respond to those feelings. And those choices make all the difference in our lives.”
This is the skill.
Not emotional control.
Emotional clarity.
Emotional choice.
My Simple Definitions
Over the last decade of coaching, this is how I define the pieces of the emotional world:
Emotion: the raw physical sensation in the body
Feeling: the subjective description you give to that sensation
Thought: the interpretation that follows
Emotion → Feeling → Thought
Body → Label → Story
Most people try to change the story (“I just need to think positive”).
But behavior change happens at the root—not the branches.
If you want better stories, you need better sensing.
If you want better actions, you need better awareness.
The Skill That Changed My Life
I was 31 years old when I realized I had the emotional intelligence of a kindergartner.
I could train athletes.
I could build a business.
I could push myself physically.
But ask me what I was feeling?
Why I snapped?
Why I shut down?
Why I avoided certain conversations or behaviors?
I had no idea.
I wasn’t unintelligent.
I was emotionally uninformed.
So I went to work—not in the gym, but in my inner world.
I learned to:
Recognize sensations in my body
Name what I felt
Navigate it with curiosity instead of judgment
Communicate it with honesty to myself and others
That process took me from disconnected → integrated.
From reactive → responsive.
From living on autopilot → living awake.
From guarded → open.
As I developed emotional intelligence in myself, something else happened:
I started to understand others more deeply.
I could:
See their emotions
Validate their experience
Empathize without absorbing
Connect without collapsing
Listen without defending
It changed my relationships.
It changed my coaching.
It changed the trajectory of my life.
And it’s been the single biggest reason the quality of my life has transformed over the last five years.
Why This Matters for Behavior Change
Most choose stories that affirm their behaviors of avoidance:
“i’m not that kind of person”
“I’m not good at discipline”
“but what would they think of me”
“I just don’t have time”
But that resistance those stories, have an emotional source:
Shame.
Fear.
Avoidance.
Insecurity.
Overwhelm.
Doubt.
Uncertainty.
Comparison.
These emotions and feelings create the friction that makes change feel hard.
When you lack emotional intelligence, that friction wins.
When you build emotional intelligence, you learn to move through it.
This is why I say:
Emotional intelligence is the most important skillset for behavior change.
Because every outcome you want—health, performance, confidence, connection, leadership, love, longevity—requires you to consistently navigate your internal world.
If you can’t do that, you can’t change.
If you can, you become unstoppable.
The Good News
Emotional intelligence isn’t something you’re born with.
It’s something you learn.
It’s a trainable skillset.
Recognizing what you feel.
Naming what you feel.
Understanding why it’s there.
Navigating it with clarity.
Communicating it with honesty.
Acting in alignment with your values.
Do that consistently, and behavior change becomes natural—not forced.
Resistance becomes a guide, not an enemy.
And you begin to live a life that is not just accomplished, but deeply, meaningfully lived.
If you’re ready to take your health and fitness goals back into your own hands, I’m here to help. We can start building the Emotional Intelligence you need together —> Here.