- Wars
- Death of relatives
- Traumas
Learning to be emotionally strong Will allow you to overcome obstacles and negative events in your life, and continue persevering to reach your goals.
You are sure to have stressful events in your life, but if you are resilient or emotionally strong you will have the ability to control them and recover before.
Some of this ability may be due to the genes, but another part is due to the coping strategies that are learned. And therefore, you can learn them too.
Why is resilience important?
The ability to deal with negative emotions and situations is a predictor of success and happiness.
Investigate anyone you consider to be successful or happy, and in 95% of cases you will have gone through complicated situations or major failures.
Resilient people are able to turn an obstacle into growth and opportunities.
In fact, this is a fundamental coping strategy they use: they consider obstacles, failures or negative events as opportunities to grow.
I give you the example of Marta and Paula:
-Marta (28 years old) lost his parents at age 10, Suffered bullying In his childhood and does not like his work. He is constantly thinking about the past and the bad luck he has had in his life.
-Paula (28 years old) lost his parents, Suffered bullying In his childhood and although he does not like his work, he is learning and trying to find something better. He believes that his past has served him to be stronger psychologically.
Traits of a person with resilience
Before I start with the habits you can follow to be emotionally strong I would like to ask you a question:
If two entrepreneurs spend 5 years of their lives working to build a company and both fail, which one is stronger psychologically? Does the person feel unsuccessful and cry depressed for a week or the person who feels depressed and keeps their emotions?
Not really; It was a"trick question"and you did not have enough information to give an answer:
The immediate reaction of a person matters very little. What really matters is what you do next and over time.
Can To be sad For a week,"redo"and return to work on your new goals.
You can also control the moment better but then you give up what you wanted to get.
In a comparison like this, the one who cries has a stronger mental strength than the one who does not cry but leaves with time.
Sadness, tears or frustration are temporary signs of disgust, but not of being defeated.
What really matters is if you believe in your possibilities, in your abilities, if you value yourself and if the negative or Your failures They have made you grow personally.
Therefore, forget about the typical image shown in the cinema of the"strong man"who does not cry in the face of adversity. These you can see them also in the daily life.
When you see someone who looks strong, ask yourself if he really is; Why circumstances have passed, if they have learned from them, if they have made them grow, if not abandon...
10 Habits to be Resilient or Emotionally Strong
1-Look at difficulties as opportunities
Did you know that in 1914 Thomas Edison's laboratory burned and with it the work of many years?
Undoubtedly, you could describe it as something catastrophic and you can not get anything positive.
However, Edison chose to see it as an opportunity, that is, chose to see it positively. He said:" Thank God that all our mistakes were burned. Now we can start fresh again ".
Perhaps the house will not be burned to you, but surely some similar misfortune has happened to you. Or you might.
In that case, surely you can see the opportunity, as Edison saw it, and find a way to benefit from it.
The idea is that things that happen to you and that you can not control can be your greatest opportunities.
In the middle of the difficulty lies the opportunity. -Albert Einstein.
2-Accept contingencies and failures
Who does not risk does not win and if you are not willing to fail you can not get anything difficult or valuable.
This is always going to be like this; From personal relationships to the workplace.
Believing that you do not deserve to fail or that you do not deserve what you have alone will make your challenges more complicated.
According to Paul Harvey, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, in general, Generation Y, Millennium Generation or Millennials (Born between 1982 and 2000) has this characteristic: unrealistic expectations and a strong resistance to accept negative feedback.
According to Harvey:
"It was sold to Generation Y a mentality about how the world was going to be at any moment. In earlier stages, the framework given to the people was not only more humble, but understood how unpredictable and inexplicable the world could be."
Actually, it's very similar to what I saw in a college roommate. In delivering our work, I thought that the ideal thing was to do things as well as possible, to fail, to learn and to do them again.
But she had another mentality. He said something like this:"I want to deliver the perfect job. I do not like to have it wrong and have it corrected."
Do you really believe that there is any possibility that things will turn out right or perfect at first?
If you want to be strong psychologically, you will have to recognize that your plans could collapse at any time and not waste your energy in cursing destiny or bad luck.
If you fail, learn from failure, accept it as something normal and move on.
I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can not accept not to try. -Michael Jordan.
3-Adapt to change
In today's world, change is the norm; Work, technology, housing, circumstances and even a couple or friends.
In fact, being resilient is related to flexibility. Imagine a spring that can be stretched and compressed.
Such are resilient people; Are able to adapt to change, learn and be happy with changing situations.
Although they may have a bad time for some time, they adapt to situations and end up being emotionally stable.
Your life does not improve by chance, it improves by change. - Jim Rohn .
4-Look for your emotional stability
In my opinion happiness is not being exalted or laughing all the time. That would rather be a manic state. I think the Buddhists have the same opinion.
Being emotionally strong does not try to be happy, but to maintain a stable level of your mood. That is, to be at peace, relaxed or in harmony.
Emotional Stability And the ability to keep the mind cold is an important skill to deal with difficult situations. S It is a trait that increases with age and often happiness increases with it.
On the other hand, there is the excessive concern for happiness, which can actually lead to an unhealthy attitude and more negative emotions.
Strong people do not avoid Negative emotions (Nor does it seek them), but when they arise, they accept them. They accept both positive and negative emotions.
The cultural obsession for being always positive is counterproductive and unhuman.
Sadness, dislikes, frustrations and failures are things that are also part of your story - just like happy moments and successes - and that have helped mold you as you are today.
The key, therefore, is to learn from the negative and overcome it to advance to new stages; Use negative emotions and events to advance, not to get stuck.
5-Work your fitness
Working your fitness can help you feel better physically and mentally, in addition to being more resilient.
Part of being resilient is feeling that you have control - or part of control - about a situation and that you can resolve it despite the challenges ahead.
If you are not physically fit, you may feel that you are not in control of your body. In fact, people who are physically fit are more resilient at work.
According to Dr. Ben Michaelis of New York City:
" It may sound counterintuitive, but you can be mentally stronger by being physically stronger, through cardiovascular exercise. The data indicate the relationship between physical and emotional health. This is why I often suggest that people who want to build their emotional resilience start by strengthening their endurance running, swimming or on the bike ".
6-Focus on solutions
Do not you think that focusing on problems is the opposite of being resilient? How will you overcome an obstacle if you think about the problem instead of In the solution ?
Imagine you have a fence to jump. You focus on the big problem you have, that it is very high or that you can hurt when you skip it.
However, you could also have spent your mental energy thinking of a solution, such as finding a ladder, asking someone for help or cutting it.
This happens often and you can observe it in any conversation, in the news and in the world in general; People tend to focus more on problems than solutions.
If, when a problem arises, you seek the solution directly, you will save time and make it a habit.
If the problem can not be solved, it is best to accept it and let a prudent time pass until you overcome it.
7-Live the present
Being in the here and now, living the present, allows you to see things as they are. That way, you can also solve your problems better.
If you want to be mentally strong, you have to be in a present state, not anticipating the future or staying in the past.
As you know, it is normal for problems to arise or to go through stages with low mood.
If you live the present, you can overcome those situations, since you will focus on what you have now, the solutions and your environment, not your past or your future.
This ability Is also called mindfulness And is related to emotional stability, less stress and anxiety, and greater mental clarity.
8-If persistent
Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth found that the perseverance Was the quality that counted most for academic success. More than any other quality such as emotional intelligence, physical attractiveness, physical health, or IQ.
He also studied teachers and workers in different professional settings to determine what determined success.
According to Duckworth:
" In these different contexts, one factor emerged as the secret of success and it was not social intelligence, good looks, physical health or IQ. It was perseverance. "
To be persistent in your goals, I recommend this: always have a plan A, B and C. And if you do not have them, believe them.
If you want to get whatever it is, you'll find a way to do it, but you'll look for excuses.
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. -John Quincy Adams.
9-Look at the positive-realistic point of view
Resilient people get up quickly after falling.
They may feel sad, disgusted or hopelessly momentarily, but they rise again to face their obstacles.
To be emotionally strong, you have to have the Positive-optimistic hope And pessimistic clarity. This allows you to: 1) see the possibilities, 2) be motivated, 3) be critical and 4) accept that failures or negative events can occur.
10-Learn to leave
To be mentally strong is to be aware that in certain circumstances you will give everything and you will not be able to do anything else.
It is important to recognize that you can only control your own actions, not the results of those actions, the actions of other people or even chance.
Accepting this fact will allow you to overcome events that are beyond your acts. You will focus on what you can do and control and you will accept what you can not control.
Sometimes the smallest solution to a problem is to accept that you can not control it and move on, avoiding colliding again and again against the same obstacle.
Examples: knowing abandoning destructive partner relationships, projects that are doomed to failure, rectify bad decisions...
And what do you do to be emotionally strong and resilient? I am interested in your opinion. Thanks!
