Life is full of highs and lows, making navigating challenges and setbacks with grace and resilience critically important. Emotional resilience is more than just bouncing back from challenges — it’s growing, adapting, and thriving amid hardships. It allows us to withstand setbacks, manage stress, and come out the other side stronger.
Understanding Emotional Resilience
Emotional resilience is your ability to respond to stressful or unexpected situations. It can empower you to accept, adapt to, and move forward from stressful times. But having high emotional resilience doesn’t mean you never experience stress — it means you can remain calm during stressful situations and plan to work through stressors. If you have low emotional resilience, you may experience extreme emotional swings in times of stress and be unable to react.
Your level of emotional resilience is affected by a variety of factors — some within your control, some outside of it. For example, your age and life experiences directly affect your ability to cope with stressful situations. There have also been direct correlations found between gender and emotional resilience. Obviously, you can’t control these factors, but it’s worth recognizing the role they play. We’ll share tips below to help you manage the factors you can control. But first, let’s look at a few indicators of emotional resilience.
Traits of Emotional Resilience
There’s no right or wrong way to build emotional resilience, but there are a few key traits that signal whether or not you’re on the right track.
Emotional awareness
Being emotionally aware means you can recognize, understand, and manage your emotions. It also means you sense the feelings of those around you and respond empathetically. When it comes to emotional resilience, being emotionally aware helps you understand and respond to your triggers in a healthy and constructive way.
Perseverance
The ability to persevere through difficult situations is a sign of high emotional resilience. In the face of challenges, obstacles, and setbacks, those with more resilience will trust the process and stay the course. They’re action-oriented and generally find a way to work through problems and emerge stronger.
Internal locus of control
Having an internal locus of control means you see yourself as being in control of your own life. This sense of control empowers individuals by creating a sense of responsibility and an ability to improve their circumstances. This quality of self-control encourages proactive behavior and reduces feelings of helplessness.
Optimism
Being emotionally resilient involves having a positive outlook on life, even when things don’t go as planned. In the face of adversity, an optimistic person will be able to look beyond the present and expect a favorable outcome. Optimism helps you cope with stress, bounce back from setbacks quickly, and hold on to hope and motivation.
Perspective
Your emotional resilience directly affects how you perceive and interpret events and challenges. Your outlook on life, whether positive or negative, determines how you respond to circumstances and whether you remain level-headed during difficulties. By having a healthy perspective on challenges, you can learn from your mistakes and find meaning in hard times.
The way you demonstrate emotional resilience is unique to you and your circumstances. What matters is that you can still feel strong and confident in your abilities in the face of your stressors.
5 Tips for Becoming Emotionally Resilient
Emotional resilience is essential to coping with stress and navigating through life’s ups and downs. Here are a few tips to increase — or maintain — your emotional resilience.
1). Practice awareness.
As we said earlier, emotional resilience does not mean you’ll never experience stress. What it does mean is that you’re able to recognize and acknowledge when you are stressed. If you start feeling stressed, take a moment to determine what’s bothering you and why. Identify whether the source of your stress is deep-rooted anxiety or just a passing annoyance. The root of your stress will help determine your approach to handling it.
It’s okay to feel upset when times get tough. Let yourself feel those negative emotions, then approach the problem with more positive ones. Practice positive and calm thinking, and teach yourself to remain present and relaxed in the midst of trouble.
2). Be flexible.
Change isn’t all bad. Identify any areas where you might be resisting change, and learn to embrace it where it’s healthy. Hold your circumstances loosely and course correct to account for changing situations and new stressors. Practicing flexibility in everyday scenarios will allow you to adapt more quickly when circumstances change for better or worse.
3). Develop coping strategies.
You may already have things you turn to for comfort in times of stress. Take time to identify those things and figure out how to best use them. Whether it’s going for a walk, curling up with a good book, or talking with a close friend, find what brings you peace and incorporate those practices during stressful situations.
If approaching difficult situations head-on is intimidating to you, break up large tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. Dealing with significant problems is essential to building your emotional resilience, but breaking it up can make it easier to digest. You could even make a checklist so you can see what needs to be done without feeling overwhelmed.
4). Be kind to yourself.
Facing stress isn’t easy, no matter how much emotional resilience you have. Practice self-care and self-compassion regularly, and acknowledge your achievements and progress. And if you’ve had a hard few days, it’s ok to treat yourself. It’s important to feel confident and comfortable; sometimes, a little pick-me-up is all it takes to get you back on track.
When times get hard and you start to struggle, show yourself some forgiveness. You can’t handle every situation perfectly, and you might experience setbacks. What matters is that you learn from your mistakes and move forward feeling better prepared for whatever the future holds.
5). Build a support network.
No one should have to endure hardships alone. Surround yourself with positive relationships and influences who can pick you up when you’re down. Find family and friends to confide in when things get tough. With a strong support system, you’ll feel more confident and comfortable overcoming whatever life brings.
As you embark on your journey to building emotional resilience, remember to give yourself some grace. It may take some trial and error to figure out what coping strategies work best. If you’re looking for extra help and support as you learn to navigate and cope with stress, our team of experts is here to help. Schedule your appointment with iTrust today to get on your way to becoming a healthier, happier, more resilient you.
