Build your emotional strength

Making changes to your lifestyle, even ones that are helpful to you, can be stressful and difficult—particularly when you’re already struggling. There are several ways you can build your strength in facing these challenges and incorporating helpful changes to habits.

When we talk about “building your strength,” we are referring to behaviours, thoughts and actions that you can learn and develop in the face of change or struggle. This strength can make you resilient and more adaptable when you face challenges. Building resilience is like building muscle; it takes patience and a lot of practice. It can empower you to cope with and learn from difficult and traumatic experiences.

You can increase your resilience in many ways. Here are some ideas that could help you develop this skill.

• Recognize that you have control over your actions and responses to situations. Sometimes, situations are outside your control. But you always get to choose how you react to a situation, how you treat other people and how you treat yourself.
• Practise regular self-care. Try including some healthy changes to your habits, for example, gratitude journaling, affirmations and breathing techniques. Incorporating these into your day when you’re feeling overwhelmed can be very valuable.
• Work toward creating a positive social network for yourself. You might find support in a number of places: friends, family, pets, religious or spiritual spaces, shared interest clubs (e.g., book clubs or sports teams), therapy, online forums, your workplace, etc.
• Build a collection of possible coping strategies you can reach for. Having a few activities that you can lose yourself in (e.g., hobbies, interest groups, games, books) is a healthy way to distract yourself from a stressor.
• Recognize your skills, values, and strengths. Knowing your strengths can help you understand how you personally deal best with a situation. Keeping a list of your strengths can also help you establish and maintain high self-esteem when you’re struggling. Recognizing how far you’ve come, even with what you’ve been through, can help you see how strong you really are and provide motivation to keep going.