4 Qualities To Achieve Emotional Fitness

4 Qualities To Achieve Emotional Fitness by Daniel Theyagu

You've heard about Emotional Intelligence (EI). Achieving a high sense of EI skills has shown results for organization and individuals alike in terms of being able to strive in times of uncertainty. However, when we face uncertainties in life and career the problem is that we are never sure as to how long it will last. Life as we know it sometimes throws at us challenges that does not have a quick fix formula and has a tendency to drag us into a rut. It is in these kinds of situations that we need to develop our sense of Emotional Fitness (EF).

Emotional Fitness is a state of being whereby you have the ability to develop a sustained capability and capacity to strife well when the going gets tough. Just like physical fitness is required to run a very long race, you need a sense of emotional fitness when you have got to handle a crisis or some prolonged challenging situation that confronts and confounds you. These situations require an extended period of time to resolve and as such may sap you of your physical and mental energy and may put you in an emotionally bankrupt state.

In these circumstances it would take tremendous emotional energy to remain motivated. This is not an easy state of mind to achieve. However, your ability to ride this wave of uncertainty is what makes you an outstanding person. Abraham Lincoln said: "Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you and in the end you are sure to succeed."

To achieve this sense of emotional fitness, you need to keep a positive mindset by developing four personal qualities that allow you to be able to live day by day when uncertainty strikes you and work progressively towards an effective method to reduce the tough challenges that you are facing.

The four qualities that you should enhance to become emotionally fit are:

1. Patience

This is perhaps the most important quality to ensure that you develop emotional fitness. There are some things in life that cannot be achieved overnight. If you hit the gym everyday and hope to have a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a week, it is just not going to happen. Some people find for 'quick-fixes' like taking steroids and other muscle enhancement medication. But such things come with extreme side effects that may not be a good thing for your body in the long run. What you need is patience in what you are doing. You have to be consistent in what you do and constant in doing it. Likewise, if you have a recurrent problematic situation that saps your emotional energy, be patient and work towards an ideal outcome. There is an ancient Chinese saying that says "it takes many droplets to make the mighty ocean."

Break your problem into small achievable steps and enjoy the little victories every time you solve a small aspect of the problem. These little victories will help you stay focus and motivates you towards handling the problem objectively and effectively.

2. Develop a sense of Spiritual Centre

Learn to create a sense of spiritual centre in your life. This means accepting who you are and what you can do. In the mad rushing world of today, there is a tendency for us to want things that other people have. This is all well and good, but at what expense? If you can afford a big car then go for it! But if you want the big car because your neighbour or colleague has got one and you want to compete with him, then you are going to be 'hijacked' emotionally as you will come to realize that you don't need the car and you are going to have a tough time servicing the loan. This will definitely sap you of your emotional energy.

You can develop a sense of spirituality by being true to yourself and do things that make you feel good about yourself. Try by writing down the strong points that you have and areas of weaknesses that you wish to overcome. Reason and rationalize with yourself as to what you are doing. Is this the right thing for you to do it? Are you doing it because you want to or because you have to? It may not be easy to always get the answers to these questions. But by asking them you become self-aware and can thus learn to self-regulate. This will then make you a personally competent person.

3. Learn to shift your Paradigm

In his book Principle-centered Leadership, Stephen R. Covey mentions that if you want to make minor improvements, work on attitudes and behaviours. However, in order to make major improvements in our lives, he suggests that we should work on paradigms. A paradigm is a way of thinking. Sometimes in our lives we feel emotionally sapped because of the way we think. If something is not working for you it could be that you might be trapped in a certain way of thinking. Try looking at the challenge from a different perspective. Talk to someone you trust to see how they might have handled the situation. For all you know, they may have a solution to your situation or at least they may be able to look at your challenge objectively. Also take heed of what Richard L. Evans said: "Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was."

4. Engage in Positive Self-Reflections

Positive Self-Reflection means your ability to look at yourself from as a positive and successful person no matter what has happened to you. Sure! There may be things that you might have done that you are not proud or you have had a failed relationship or some form of troubled past. Thinking about things that already happened is not going to make it go away. You need to acknowledge what has happened to you and look at the present and the future. Instead of gravitating towards negativity when tough times confounds you try to think of the many times you were actually successful. Ask yourself how you felt during those successful times. Can you emulate that feeling back to the current situation? Too often we feel trapped by the challenges life throws at us. Although there are no answers to some of the problems that you are experiencing, what you may have, however, are 'alternatives'. These 'alternatives' may help you resolve your problem effectively. You will not be able to identify these 'alternatives' by gravitating yourself towards negative thoughts.