“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.” – Robert Jordan
At one time or another we all come face-to-face with real hardships in life, whether it’s social, emotional, financial or physical. Resilience is that certain ineffable quality that allows some people to go through challenges in life and bounce back stronger than ever.
Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes. When it comes to failures and life’s little curveballs, it is often said that it is best to maintain mental toughness or mental resilience to weather through the storm. Mental resilience is becoming one of the most sought-after personal attributes to develop as one learns how to deal with life’s challenges and bounce back from adversity.
Emotional intelligence is said to be the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. It generally includes three skills: emotional awareness; the ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem-solving; and the ability to manage emotions, which includes regulating your own emotions. More specifically, emotional self-regulation refers to the ability to manage disruptive emotions and impulses. It is the ability to calm yourself down when you’re upset and cheer yourself up when you’re down. Emotional intelligence is important as it helps us to navigate through the labyrinth of emotions and more importantly, learn how to manage them.
The benefits of developing mental resilience and emotional intelligence can be far-reaching and universal. It can help you to be more emotionally resilient, push you to go further and harder, and build armor through perseverance to go through life’s uncertainties.
Here are some effective ways to develop mental resilience and increase emotional intelligence:
Manage your expectations
The best offense is a good defense. One of the biggest ways you can build resilience to the things that come your way is to manage your expectations. If you have poorly managed expectations, you’ll run into more surprises, which can make you feel out of control. Lack of control can lower your morale and weaken your mental fortitude. Flexibility and the ability to adapt to situations are key components to laying the groundwork for strong mental resolve.
Do something that you are not good at
We are often much happier and perform much better when we get to focus on what we do best. Continually playing to your strengths doesn’t help much with resilience though.
Have emotional regulation
Emotional regulation has to do with our ability to control strong emotions by not acting on raw feelings in an impulsive or destructive manner. Developing the ability to sit with unpleasant feelings and to give ourselves the time and space to decide how we may alleviate or reduce negative feelings cultivates self-confidence. Emotional regulation also helps us develop the ability to consider various solutions to a particular situation or problem. Not reacting solely from an emotionally charged state result in better decision-making outcomes.
Empathize
When we empathize with others, we develop deeper, more intimate relationships. Empathy involves the ability to emotionally understand what another person is experiencing. Essentially, it is putting yourself in someone else’s position and feeling what they must be feeling. Developing empathy skills enhances our experiences, relationships, and general understanding of ourselves, as well as other people around us.
Too much empathy, sometimes known as empathy fatigue or compassion fatigue, can be detrimental to one’s well-being and can interfere with rational decision-making, causing people to lead with their hearts rather than their heads and lose a broader perspective or ignore potential long-term consequences of overly empathic behavior.