Life problems and difficulties are inevitable, that’s why we need emotional strength in order to stand strong in the face of adversity. Emotionally strong people do face harsh life problems like everybody. The difference between an emotionally strong person and normal people is that the type of problem that would break a normal person may seem much smaller to an emotionally strong person.
When you are emotionally weak you do not only get easily hurt by problems that do not hurt other people but you may also find it difficult to deal with normal life problems because they seem much bigger than they actually are. Lack of emotional strength can make you see difficulties in everything, and this can make you feel helpless whenever you face a serious life problem.
How to be emotionally stronger
Some people mistakenly think that some people are born emotionally strong while others are not, but that is totally wrong. The truth is that emotional strength is a trait that can be learned by anybody. While some people grew up in an environment that allowed them to be psychologically stronger, any person can learn and acquire emotional strength no matter how they were raised or how old they are.
Below are some of the essential steps you need to take in order to develop emotional strength.
- Learn to take immediate actions: what do you do when you face a serious problem? Do you try to keep yourself busy in order to forget about it, or do you pray to God and wait for Him to solve the problem? If you normally react to problems in this way then you will never develop emotional strength. I’m not saying that you should not pray but when you only pray or keep yourself busy without taking any action to solve your problem, your mind will start to believe that you are incapable of solving your problems. That’s why you should take immediate actions as soon as you encounter any problem. (See: why you should not suppress your emotions)
- Do not be too needy: if you were desperate to get a compliment from someone and got a negative remark instead, then you will feel really bad. The more you need acceptance, love, praise or anything from people, the more you will get easily hurt if they didn’t give you what you want. Most often, being too needy is connected to other psychological factors like low self-esteem and that’s why trying to be less needy without dealing with the underlying cause won’t work. (See where do insecurities come from)
- Courage: the kind of courage you need in order to become emotionally strong is the courage to face life problems instead of escaping to quick fixes. Because problems usually result in bad emotions, some people usually seek an escape route in order to feel good without solving the problem. This escape route may be something like drugs, binge eating, or anything that can make a person happy for a short period of time. Since you can’t be emotionally strong before you prove to yourself that you are capable of solving your current and future life problems, escaping would only make you lose confidence in your problem-solving skills.
- Get rid of limiting beliefs: limiting beliefs like “I can’t do it, I’m a loser, there is no way out…” do not only make you psychologically weak but they can also make your life miserable. If you believe that you can’t achieve some of the important goals you have in your life then you won’t bother trying to fight for them. On the other hand if you believe that you can achieve them then you will be motivated to keep trying even if you failed several times and you would eventually achieve them. Because most often success does not happen on the first attempt, failing once or twice can break you if you have a limiting belief such as “I can’t do it”. See: How to stop being overly sensitive.
- Emotional attachment makes you weak: being too emotionally attached to anything will make you weak. While it’s healthy to get attached to the most important things you have in your life, you should not let yourself reach a level where you feel like your life will be meaningless if you lose that thing. In fact, the reason why some people fail to move on after a breakup is because they were too emotionally attached to their partner.