Part of being human is to face situations that are emotionally and mentally straining and draining. I’ve even seen it on my kids faces when they are denied something they really wanted to do or denied something they really wanted to have. I’ve seen it in middle schoolers and high school freshmen as they are navigating new social challenges and in high school seniors who are trying to figure out what adulthood is going to look like for them. Then, of course, you can identify with workplace and home stresses as you do this adult thing. No matter how old or what environment you’re in, it is important that you pay close attention to your emotional health and even the emotional health of your loved ones.
In this second part of our Emotional Health series, I have provided 5 more tips that may help you rise out of an emotional slump and back to climbing the mountain of hope. The first part was focused more on you taking in the environment around you. In this part 2, I am providing you tips that may help you focus on your internal connections.
1. Get Rid of Negative Thinking
Do away with pessimistic thoughts and focus on the positive ones. Filling your mind with negative thoughts or allowing things and people to fill your mind with negative thoughts does not do you any good. As a matter of fact, it adds to the stress
2. Practice Self-Discipline
If you feel that developing self-discipline is difficult, just know that you are not alone. That does not mean that it’s not a good idea but just that the development of new habits of self-discipline may be challenging for some. Its important to know and remember that discipline is one of the most important values that you could ever develop. Without self-discipline, you will not be able to control yourself and thus increase the chances of you doing something that you will soon regret. Having regret, loss of control, and disorder in your life will add to an unhealthy emotional state.
3. Make Imperfection Great
I used to give up when something could not be perfect. What I learned through the years is that we are all humans and that means we will make mistakes. So, human, you should give yourself the room to make some mistakes. Now this is not a license to loose control (see tip #2) but remember that wisdom comes from experience and some of the best experiences come from failures or mistakes. Striving for perfection is good, but not when it is causing you loads of stress and pressure. Also, embracing your imperfections will allow you relief when you accept you for how you are and gives you the platform to get success from working on those imperfections.
4. Let Go of the “All-or Nothing” Attitude
Letting go of the all-or-nothing attitude is essential to getting rid of negative thinking. An all-or-nothing attitude can also have similarities to perfectionism (talked about briefly in the last tip, tip #3). But with an all-or-nothing attitude, one may see themselves as a loser because one particular thing didn’t go as planned. I used to suffer from this, and even still have to watch for this, as I plan my goals. If I were to miss one goal or one goal turned out to be a failure, I would get depressed or feel like the whole plan failed. That was and is not the case. Letting go of the all-or-nothing attitude allows you to be more resilient and bounce back from failure but still strive to see the whole experience as a positive learning experience.
5. Don’t Jump To (Negative) Conclusions
Jumping to conclusions often shows up in different ways. One way that it shows up is when you automatically assume the worse of a situation or a persons intentions. Another is making the mistake of thinking that you can’t do something when you haven’t even tried. Jumping to negative conclusions automatically sets the stage for negative thinking (tip #1) and will hold you back from trying, and possibly accomplishing something that you may be successful at and proud of.
As I stated in the first part of this series, good emotional health doesn’t mean that you won’t have times that you feel negative emotions or that you won’t have to deal with conflict. It is all about having overall contentment and positive self-awareness. In the final part of this series, I will continue to give tips that you can easily implement in your life to create emotional resiliency.
Brian "B-Rob" Robinson is a Certified Life Strategies Coach, Certified Sports Nutrition Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, Youtuber, and co-founder of LEANWellonline. His website is thisisbrob.com and his YouTube channel is thisisb-rob.