8 Steps To Become A Stronger Person Emotionally

The word “strong” is often connected to the idea of physical strength, but that isn’t an honest definition. Strength can come from inside as well and should be recognized for it. When you lose control of your emotions, it can cause you to feel vulnerable and the opposite of being strong.

Being swayed by your emotions isn’t a weakness or something negative, but it can be more beneficial for a person to be stable emotionally to make clear and sound decisions that are best for them when it matters most. If you consider yourself overly emotional or sensitive, the first thing you should know is that becoming emotionally strong does not mean you should never show your emotions or be affected by them.

Feelings are part of being human. Don’t ever feel ashamed of what and how you feel, love yourself for being capable of feeling deeply. Although you should accept your feelings, you should also be capable of controlling them. Follow the 8 steps below to learn to control your feelings, rather than the other way around.

1. Go Easy On Yourself

It’s hard to feel strong when you’re being hard on yourself. That means rather than embracing and appreciating your natural feelings, you reject them or think critically of yourself for being an emotional person. Research shows that thinking negatively about yourself, whether it’s just your thoughts or speaking aloud, has a significant impact on your self-confidence and self-worth.

Train yourself to recognize when you’re thinking negatively about yourself and reverse it. If you feel embarrassed for tearing up easily during a sad movie, don’t feel bad about it – remember that sad movies are meant to have that effect. So do other things in your life that you could feel ashamed for being sensitive about.

Like something rude that someone might have said to you at work, feeling like you’re bad at something everyone seems good at, having a bad day; whatever might cause you to feel emotional, you’re not alone. Everyone feels bad from time to time, it’s important to remember that it shouldn’t always feel that way. If it does, ask yourself if it’s caused because of a critical reaction on your part. If there’s anything we know about people as a society, it’s that we’re imperfect beings and should be kind to ourselves for it.

2. Practice Self-Love First

Besides inadvertently putting ourselves down, there’s also the unhelpful tendency of giving love and appreciation to others, not ourselves. It’s, unfortunately, a different type of pandemic, but many would describe feeling guilty for putting themselves first. This stems from low self-esteem and confidence and certainly would contribute to you feeling less than strong.

To start your journey in becoming a strong person emotionally, you should first build up your sense of self-worth and confidence. You do that by listening to your needs without feeling guilty about it. Strong people are strong because they care of themselves first and foremost, which allows them to take care of others and be seen as capable by them. It may seem unnecessary, but the act of self-care can be compared to building up your muscles to become stronger physically, just for your emotions.

If you believe in taking care of yourself and enjoy doing it, then when you’re faced with difficult emotions you’ll be more knowledgeable in what you need to cope with them. Again, the goal isn’t to numb yourself from ever feeling again, it’s to train yourself to stabilize when strong emotions threaten to overwhelm you.

Related: 6 Ways To Boost Your Self-Esteem When You’re Feeling Down

3. Realize The Things Holding You Back

When you go to the doctor’s because you aren’t feeling well, you’ll often be asked about your symptoms. Physicians ask you about your medical history and other questions like when you started feeling unwell and if it’s happened before because in order to properly diagnose and treat you, they need to know the real cause of the issue.

You need to follow a fairly similar process with yourself when working on your emotional strength. You can’t move forward and truly build up that capacity without first facing the things that could hold you back. If you avoid dealing with your feelings or situations that make you feel vulnerable (sadness, anger, embarrassment, etc), you actually become weaker and inhibit your efforts in becoming emotionally strong.

This is the time to understand why you might easily lose control of your emotions or be emotionally weak. Do you have low self-esteem? Are you worried about what others might think if you act more confident? Work to steadily change those limiting behaviors if they contribute to you feeling less than, not more.

4. Live Without Judgement

It’s easy to be constantly occupied and worried about what others think of you. In today’s age, it’s even the norm to be more invested in other people’s lives than your own (ahem, those social media feeds though).

When you’re caught up in that world of defining your happiness based on what other people are doing, you lose sight of your own needs and your authentic self. Rather than focusing on what people are wearing and eating online and doing the same, try to get to a place with yourself where you note what you like and that’s all that (should) matter.

Change doesn’t happen in one day, and you should still, of course, care about others and their opinions. I mean, how else will you know what to buy on Amazon, right? Reviews matter. But when you make it your natural instinct and need to have a second opinion and replace it with your own then you put yourself down unconsciously.

What you think matters, always. Don’t let the fear of judgment from others hinder you from doing what you find interesting and worthwhile. The fact that you feel a certain way about something alone makes it valuable.

5. Learn From The Tough Times

If you want to become emotionally strong because you don’t want tough situations to be as tough, that’s fine. That’s a perfect reason, actually. But to get to that point, it’s necessary to think back on those tougher times and remember what made them so.

Did you become emotional during a “tough event?” Was it the environment you were in? What about the people involved? There are a countless number of challenges that we might face in life and plenty face what they consider a difficult time frequently. You can’t anticipate every bad thing that might happen to you, but you can prepare yourself emotionally by knowing how you’ve reacted in the past.

Recall how you managed to get through those tough times. Did you occupy yourself to get your mind off of it? Did you make the best decisions for yourself at the time or others? Does thinking back to it still cause negative feelings? Ask yourself meaningful questions that reveal how you typically respond to certain events and how to change your reaction to be healthier and more stable.

You can’t help it if something difficult happens and it makes you feel a certain way, that’s only natural. What you can help is doing what’s best for yourself rather than letting your feelings drag you down and linger in a toxic way.

6. Find Your Purpose(s)

Many people wouldn’t have an answer if they were asked what their purpose was. If most people did have a perfect and single response then the world has a problem. Humans have always been fickle and it’s made us the dominant species we are. Our purpose changes constantly, whether we realize it or not. Even those that claim they can only do one thing for the rest of their lives and have been fiercely dedicated to it take detours or even lengthy breaks from that grand purpose.

When a person doesn’t have a purpose or doesn’t care to have one, it doesn’t mean they’re doomed or something horrible happens to them. Many people might think they don’t have a purpose, they’re just happy to live doing things that they like and aren’t committed to fulfilling some deep meaning in life. A lot of people might also not realize that they have a purpose just by living.

You might not think of it as a purpose, probably because you’re conditioned to associate something as important as a purpose as something that contributes to society. The more valued the purpose is by society, the more satisfaction and pride it should give us. Like becoming a doctor, joining the Peace Corps, or you know… saving the world, that works too.

Your purpose doesn’t have to be saving the world. It can be something as simple as being kind to others, sharing advice with a friend that needs help, making your dog the happiest pup alive, trying every flavor of ice cream in existence, whatever you consider to be important can be your purpose.

When you have a purpose or spend time doing the things that bring meaning into your life it grounds you. You become more emotionally strong when you have something you stand behind and drives you forward in life.

7. Accept The Way You Live

When you’re emotionally intelligent, you know your habits when it comes to your feelings. The moment you understand why you might feel a certain way and have a certain degree of control over your emotional responses, you’re in a strong place.

That also means that you’ve learned to embrace your feelings in full. By being self-aware and respecting the way you choose to live, you have the assurance that you need to handle what seemed impossible before – sensitive topics, bad days, sad moments, feeling hurt – you’re secure enough with yourself to feel what you need to and move on in the best way for you and you alone.

Don’t feel ashamed for wanting certain things in your life. Don’t look down on who you are and what makes you – you. Don’t overthink what people say if it’s negative or seems so, don’t quit before you even try because you don’t think have faith in your abilities, don’t fight what you want if it makes you happy.

When you accept not only your feelings but the things that make up your self-image like the way you live, you change the way you perceive yourself. Which gives you the dignity you need to be that much more stable, including emotionally.

8. Never Doubt Your Strength

The last step to becoming emotionally strong is to retain what you’ve worked hard to build up. You are emotionally strong because you love yourself for who you are, emotions, thoughts, lifestyle, and all. You know your likes and dislikes, you know what causes you regret and how to act in a way you’re proud to look back on.

That won’t always be the case. It’s an ongoing effort to stay stable and feel emotionally strong. You never know what you may face in life and it’s natural to experience things differently, no matter how prepared you are. Practice habits that build you up and keep you up. If you slip and find yourself back to a place of emotional instability, remember that you don’t have to stay in that place.

You’re strong and resilient and capable enough to handle anything. Because you’re the one in control of your feelings and most of all, you were strong once and you will always be able to harness that strength again.