Can you read the emotions of others, or are you simply projecting your own emotions?

The answer to this question isn’t simple, but there are ways to tell the difference, and ways to develop your empathic accuracy so that you’re not simply projecting your own emotional state onto others.

Sometimes, people will tell you that an emotion you sensed isn’t correct: that you’re imagining it, or that they aren’t feeling it.

They may be right. Empathy is more of an art than a science, and there are many factors that can make you more or less accurate about the emotions of others.

First, are you accurate about your own emotions? Do you usually know how you feel, and why?

If you're not accurate about your own emotions, you probably won’t be accurate about the emotions of others either. Empathy is first and foremost an emotional skill, so your own emotional awareness is crucial to your ability to identify emotions in others.

If your emotional awareness tends to be high, you may be fairly accurate at deciphering the emotions of others, but even then, people may disagree with what you sense. Many factors can get in the way of your empathic accuracy.

If people tell you that your empathy is off the mark, here are five things to consider (from my book The Art of........

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