Ever handled a really tough situation that rattled or shook you?
Do you find yourself caught up in a situation that doesn’t let you to respond calmly and pushes you to a point where you want to give up?
These are the moments when your emotional resilience comes into play and is tested.
We all might have come across such situations and would have managed to overcome them, but equipping ourselves to handle these situations is a key. This blog will help you to build a few emotional resilience strategies that could help you to “roll with the punches”.
What is emotional resilience?
Emotional resilience refers to one’s ability to handle stressful situations calmly and politely.
It’s a proven fact that ‘People with higher emotional resilience are able to withstand the stress which comes up in routine personal and business times more calmly’
“Resilience is a muscle. Flex it enough and it will take less effort to get over the emotional punches each time.”
–Alecia Moore
Recommended 10 Ways to build your Emotional Resilience:
- Stay Optimistic
- Overcome your fears
- Get Social Support
- Have Resilient Role Models
- Keep Your Brain Strong
- Find Meaning in What You Do
- Be Willing to Look at Your Mess
- Celebrate the Failure
- Find Humour
- Express Your True Self
1. Stay Optimistic
Every challenge provides an opportunity. So, focus and look for the optimistic ends tied up to the tough situations. Staying positive and continuously looking for positives helps you to avoid falling into the situation of feeling helpless, which is a trap that many fall into.
Being optimistic gives you the confidence to leverage the skills that you have and the capacity to fight over the challenge you face. Though it is very difficult, it is important to remain hopeful and optimistic.
2. Overcome your fears
As per Neuroscientists, ‘Best way to overcome fear is to face it’. The more you avoid doing complex/frightening things, your fear and confidence levels fall further more. So, stand up and face your fears and blow them away.
Though facing scary/complex situations is not a good feeling, there would immense learning from these situations which will help build resilience over time. Facing fearful/challenging opportunities frequently is the key to improving emotional resilience.
3. Take Social Support
When life gets hard, friends and loved ones can be the key support in handling those situations. As our brain needs social support for optimal functioning, connecting with friends and loved ones will help in releasing more oxytocin to the brain, which calms and relaxes your mind thereby lowering your stress.
Though it can be hard to reach out for help, creating a supportive environment will hugely help in improving your ability to pick up yourself, post the fall.
“The availability of social support in all its forms helps us in facing a challenge.”
–Elliot Friedman
4. Have Role Models
Having a role model will help you to enhance your confidence in facing tough situations. It could also act as a motivation that builds up your resilience strength.
At hard times, remembering your role models’ history or story will help in improving your inner strength and in turn your emotional resilience
5. Be Mentally Strong
You can if you can!!!
One of the key elements in building up your emotional resilience is building up your mental strength. This will help in managing your thoughts and let you to focus and come out victorious from the tough situation.
Analysing the situation and finding an optimal solution for the problem will improve your mental strength and will also remove worrisome/upsetting thoughts.
6. Find Meaning in What You Do
Before getting into any task, always spend reasonable amount of time in finding out and understanding the core purpose and mission of the task.
At hard times, when a situation turns from bad to worse, understanding the core issue/purpose behind the situation will help lift your morale and energize you to push things forward and resolve the problem
7. Be Willing to Look at Your Mess
Though looking at your mess won’t make you feel happy, you should always give yourself enough space and time to analyse the difficult situation.
Instead of rushing to jump-off the tough situation, allow yourself to slow down and analyse the issue behind the occurrence. This will allow you to make an informed decision and take the situation under your control.
8. Celebrate the Failure
Celebrating the failure is a key element in building emotional resilience but it may be the toughest move as we have been conditioned to think of mistakes and failures as a black mark on ourselves.
Making mistakes or failing is part of the learning process and should not deter us from attempting to take up challenges. We should learn from such experiences. The next time you fail, look for what is the learning and pick up the positives from that experience. Analysing your failure is a key contributor to improve your emotional resilience.
9. Find Humour🙂
When the going gets tough, stress leads to negativity and lowers your self-confidence and esteem. This should not last for long and there should be a point when you should move away and equip yourself to relook within and reenergise yourself to tackle the situation.
Finding humour during such times greatly relaxes your mind and helps you to win over the situation and this is a simple & effective way to improve your emotional resilience.
10. Express Your True Self
Showing up your true self to the world might sound scary, but not expressing the truth will make you to feel even worse as you would mask the fear on your face to the external world.
To strengthen your emotional resilience, it is essential to express your thoughts and true feelings as that would make you a mentally stronger person. Living your true self aligned with your inner truth, will strengthen and improve your emotional resilience.
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