FIVE HABITS FOR EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE

5 Habits for Developing Emotional Resilience

By Dr John Hindwood

Developing emotional resilience is the key to having the capacity to handle stress in any form and at any time in your life. Channeling stress into a positive energy can radically im prove your performance and creativity, making you brighter and quicker. This is crucial in the short and the long term to build strong, lasting relationships with those around you, while managing your own stress in a healthy manner.

In Australia at this time of the year we are approaching the Grand Final season in the football codes. The Rugby World Cup is on in Japan in September. The winners of these events will be the most resilient teams, not necessarily the teams with the most star players.

Here are five key habits that you can use to identify a person who has developed strong emotional resilience.

l. They Can Deal with Communication Problems in a Calm Way

When they are having communication problems with people, whether it's their spouse, partner, family members, colleagues or strangers, they stay calm and remain patient. They have developed tools and strategies to cope with the frustration. This is a sure sign of emotional resilience.

Their ability to listen to, and act on messages from their 'gut brain', that relies on intuitive feelings, is a key resilience strategy. Calmly being able to redirect or reframe the approach of their message when it clearly isn't getting across displays their emotional resilience.

2. They Know Asking for Help is a Strength Not a Weakness

Asking for help increases resilience. While many people feel asking for help is a sign of weakness, it's just a mindset of insecurity and self judgement. The person who possess emotional resilience knows that they accept their own strengths and limitations. They understand that while having self-confidence, they realise that they don't necessarily know everything there is to know and aren't afraid to admit this. Asking for help decreases the secretion of cortisol and increases the secretion of 'happy hormones', which in turn decreases the person's level of distress.

3. They Can Discuss Conflict Clearly and Objectively

Arguments can bring out the worst in people and bring up difficult emotions. It can cause feelings of frustration, feeling like you're not being understood or heard and goes against our need to be accepted and always right.

People who are emotionally resilient can explain a conflict in a clear and objective way. They have self-awareness of their own emotions, they can self-manage these emotions, be empathetic towards where other people are coming from in their argument, and be good at handling the other person's emotions too.

4. They Can Deal with Negative Feedback in a Positive Way

Receiving negative feedback can bring out our insecurities. Emotionally resilient people can deal with it self-confidently without getting defensive. Focusing on the facts and keeping a level head allows their emotions to stay in check. They can ‘hack their brain’ to harness stress to see criticism as growth rather than damage to their self-worth. This means that emotionally resilient people don’t experience negative emotions such as frustration when hearing criticism, and they can process them quickly and climb out of their own perspective to meet someone else’s.

5. A Job Worth Doing, is Worth Doing Lousy!

Self-confidence is key when it comes to dealing with stress. Emotionally resilient people know that getting into the ‘river of life’ and having a go, even if they feel they are not ready to perform a task yet in a peak state, is another key to harness their stress and use it in a supportive way.

Having this self-confidence and knowing that ‘a job worth doing, is worth doing lousy’ is how emotionally resilient people deal with what most people see as failures. These successful individuals see them rather as, learning experiences that give them the chance to be ‘in the game’ earlier than others so they have more time to develop their craft. They realise that assessing stressful situations in an objective way without harsh self-judgement that allows them to move from stress to strength.

In the End…

Choice is something we all have in life. A wise person once said, “choosing not to choose, is choosing”. Resilient people choose their pathway, they make consistent decisions that support them in living extraordinary lives.

These people can say No, they have a sense of humour, they have a perspective of their life and the world around them, they are optimistic even when the chips are down, perseverance is a way of life for them, and emotional awareness is a key behaviour they live by.

Learning more about our emotional responses to stressful situations and those of others, can support us to be sharper and wiser and stay calm when stressors become roadblocks in our lives. Being more stable in our thoughts and perspectives can get us through hard situations and build more positive lasting relationships with others and ourselves.