In 1969 when I started my ministry career in rural Indiana, pastors were expected to provide counseling services to the people of their congregations. I had taken a few classes in this area in college, and I wanted to help people. So as the new senior pastor, I took this on.
Sometimes the sessions went well. However, many times they did not. I have to own my part in that. I have little natural gifting as a counselor. When someone presents me with a problem, I want to present them with a solution. And an action plan. And I don’t want to revisit the problem with them until they’ve executed the action plan.
That’s not the way you’re supposed to do counseling. And it’s one of the reasons I gave it up.
But I was not the only problem in these less-than-perfect sessions. There were other problems, which I can see clearly now as I look back on that time:
• Most people do not see themselves as they really are.
• Many people don’t want to resolve their problems; they just want someone to listen to them talk.
• Some people are not emotionally strong, and as a result, they do not cope well with life’s difficulties.
Back then, I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t emotionally strong. And I didn’t have a good strategy to help people increase their emotional capacity. But now I do. And I want to share that with you. If your emotional capacity isn’t high, this will help you to increase it. If your emotional capacity is naturally high, then perhaps you can use these tips to help others on your team or in your family.
Before we dive in, let me first explain what I mean by emotional capacity. Emotional capacity is the ability to handle adversity, failure, criticism, change, and pressure in a positive way. All of these things create stress in our lives. I’ve found that the inability to deal with stress or emotional pressure takes a lot out of people. They give up, break down, or do unhealthy things to try to escape the pressure. However, emotionally strong people are able to manage their emotions and process through difficulties. That allows them to increase their capacity and moves them closer to reaching their full potential.
I’ve known and talked to a lot of people who have a high emotional capacity, and I’ve observed what they do. If you can adopt the following seven practices that I’ve observed in emotionally strong people, you will increase your emotional capacity.
The first and maybe most important thing that emotionally strong people do is take an active approach to their emotions. They never say, “That’s just how I feel. I can’t help that.” They are never victims of their own feelings.
Researcher and teacher M. Asch said in her book Perspectives on Applied Psychology, “Remember, motions are the precursors of emotions.” That means you can do things to influence your own emotions. Maybe you can’t control them completely, but you can change them through your actions. One of my favorite examples of this was written by author and speaker Og Mandino. He said,
If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labor.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will remember past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.
Today I will be master of my emotions.1
I’m not sure that I will ever be “master of my emotions,” but I will always get in motion in an attempt to head off my damaging emotions.
Here’s what I know. All of us are hit in the gut by unwanted surprises, blindsided by negative relationships, and knocked down by the blow we didn’t see coming. There are times when we want to tell the world how unfair life is. But only by taking action can we pull ourselves out of the pits we find ourselves in. Hoping, wishing, denying, crying, cussing, fussing, moaning, blaming, and waiting only keep us in the pit. The faster we can recover from the shock of the emotion, process through it, and move toward action, the quicker our recovery time will be. And the more emotionally strong we will become. The choice is always ours. We either continually work on mastering our emotions, or we will be continually mastered by them.
Perhaps you’ve heard the joke about a woman who complained to her best friend, “The whole world is against me!”
Her friend tried to comfort her. “That’s not true. The whole world isn’t against you,” she replied. “They don’t even know you yet.”
It may be corny, but it illustrates a common characteristic of people who feel sorry for themselves: they negatively exaggerate their entire situation.
At a recent conference, I shared with a group of leaders that you can’t moan and lead at the same time. That truth also applies to success. You can’t complain and get ahead at the same time. Moaning about your troubles and moving in the right direction rarely happen together. Former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens writes in his book Resilience:
Many of life’s annoyances just have to be ignored. That doesn’t mean that we suppress, ignore, or deny every pain. Serious pain has to be confronted. But one mark of resilience is learning to tell which pain deserves our attention. Paying attention to every pain, all the time, doesn’t lead to resilience. It usually just leads to whining.2
The way you deal with difficulties and avoid feeling sorry for yourself can be as unique as you are. I love the way PGA pro golfer Richard Lee handles adversity on the course. He and I met and became friends at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. I’ve had the privilege of playing in that tournament a few times, twice with Richard. One year we made the playoffs! I will never forget the thrill I had on the first tee on Sunday when I received a golf umbrella that read, I MADE THE CUT AT THE AT&T PRO AM. It’s one of my prized possessions. Not many amateurs can say that. The other time we did terribly, finishing near the bottom of the standings.
The year we did poorly, we went to dinner after we failed to make the cut to console ourselves and recover from our poor play. During dinner, one of the questions I asked Richard was “What’s the best advice you have ever received?”
“Welcome the ball,” he answered. That intrigued me. Everyone around the table wanted him to explain that.
“I play golf for a living,” he said. “Every shot is important to me. Any shot can either make me or break me in a tournament.
“Early in my career my mother-in-law could see how when I had a bad shot, I would get really disappointed. And my negative emotions would start to fill my mind and hurt my play.
“One day she said to me, ‘Richard, you will always have days when you make bad shots. Every golfer does. As you walk toward your ball you have a decision to make: Will I dread seeing the lie of my ball and begin filling my mind with negative thoughts and my body with negative emotions? Or will I welcome the ball and be glad I am a golfer and realize that I have an opportunity to make a great recovery shot? If you always welcome the ball regardless of your lie, you will more often make good recovery shots.’”
Richard looked at us and said, “Wherever my ball lies, I walk up to it and welcome the ball. It has made a great difference in my game.”
What a great way to think of dealing with adversity: making a recovery shot!
In life, every one of is is faced with “bad lies.” What will be our response when things are not working out, when bad breaks come our way, and when life isn’t fair? What will our mind-set be as we “find our ball”? We can let the bad lie ruin our attitude, or we can welcome the ball.
This reminds me of something I learned in the first Dale Carnegie course I took when I was in junior high school. I was taught to ask myself, “What is the worst that can happen?” If you can ask yourself that question and then prepare to accept it, you can hit a good “recovery shot.” If it’s as bad as the worst, you can deal with it. If it’s not as bad as you anticipated, then all the better.
When I began my career as a leader, I thought being effective meant making everyone happy with me. And because I had pretty good relationship skills, I was pretty good at making others feel good and picking them up when they were down. But I was a people pleaser, which meant that other people’s behavior was really in control of my life.
Then one day one of my mentors, Elmer Towns, told me something that really got my attention: “John, the weaker person usually controls the relationship.” He went on to explain that emotionally strong people usually have the ability to adjust to difficult relationships, while the weaker person can’t or won’t.
The implications of this are huge. If you are the emotionally stronger person in a relationship, but you are unconscious of the relationship’s dynamics, you conform to the other person’s way of relating. However, if you are conscious of the dynamics, you can choose to passively adapt to the other person, or you can take action to try to influence the dynamics or to distance yourself from the other person.
Education professor Leo Buscaglia said, “The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.” I began to look at my relationships differently that day. If a weaker person usually controlled my relationship with them, I had to take action or else there would be many times I would not reach capacity. Dysfunctional people want others to function on their level. Average people want others to be average. High achievers want others to achieve.
This sent me on a journey of discovery. First, I tried to look objectively at the people I was trying to please. Where were they headed in life? What were their motives? Did they understand the bigger vision? Were their desires in the best interests of others? Second, I looked for positive models of leadership, growth, and success. What did they do? What were their priorities? How did they fulfill their vision? How did they treat others? When I examined both groups, there was no comparison. The people I admired showed me the way forward. I learned from them and followed their modeling. The more I did that, the less I wanted to please people whose goals and vision didn’t line up with mine. And in some cases, I had to let go of old relationships to embrace a new way of living and leading.
Relationships are complicated and can be difficult to navigate. One of the ways that I can keep proper control of my life and not allow others to take that control is to understand that I wear different hats in my life: husband, father, friend, businessperson, and leader. The hat I have on determines the way I interact in the relationship. I’m continually making relationship choices throughout the day based on the hat I’m wearing.
Recently I came across a story by psychologist Henry Cloud that illustrates the idea of different hats beautifully:
A man started a company and built it into a very large enterprise, and was planning to hand over the reins to his son at retirement. One day, he was walking through the factory and observed his son angrily berating an employee in front of other employees. He looked at his son and motioned for him to come to his office.
“David,” he began. “I wear two hats around here. I am the boss and I am your father. Right now, I am going to put my boss hat on. You’re fired. You are done here. I will not have that kind of behavior in my company and will not ever tolerate employees being treated that way. I have warned you about this kind of thing before, and you are still doing it. So, I have to let you go.”
Then he said, “Now, I am going to put on my father hat.”
After a moment’s pause, he continued. “Son, I heard you just lost your job. How can I help you?”3
Emotionally strong people honor their relationships while at the same time guarding against letting others control them, especially in difficult relationships,
I have always admired Nelson Mandela. Several years ago I took a tour of Robben Island with a journalist and a former prisoner who knew Mandela. I saw the rock yard, the cave where Mandela and his fellow prisoners would meet to discuss ending apartheid, the exercise yard, and the eight-by-ten cell where Mandela spent eighteen of his first twenty-seven years in prison. I got to spend about fifteen minutes alone in that cell. I lay down on the mat that was in the cell and spent time looking through the bars imaging myself in his place, dreaming of freedom. I walked away thinking, You can’t imprison greatness. You can’t lock away a dream.
I talked quite a bit with the reporter that day. The continuing theme of our conversation was that Mandela did not allow the things he could not control to control him. That was how he could bring good out of bad and focus on what could be rather than on what was.
That evening in my hotel room, I wrote the following:
Lessons Learned from Nelson Mandela
Our surroundings need not control our spirit.
People who devalue us do not determine our value.
Dreams can be birthed during the daily grind.
Out of our brokenness, we can be made whole and bring healing to others.
Controlling what you can and not wasting energy on what you can’t is one of the most important lessons we can learn in life. One of my mentors, consultant Fred Smith, would often say to me, “You must understand the difference between a fact of life and a problem. A fact of life is something you cannot control or fix. A problem is something you can fix.” I’ve never forgotten that great advice.
Emotionally strong people don’t waste their energy when they are stuck in bad traffic, lose their luggage, or get caught in a storm. They recognize that all of these factors are beyond their control. Instead, they focus on what they can control.
When I turned sixteen, my father tried to impress this upon me. As we got into the car for me to go take my driver’s test, Dad put a book in the glove compartment, and said, “Son, there are times when you are driving that a train will cause you to stop and wait. When that happens, pull out this book and read it. Don’t let what you can’t control waste your time.” From that time on, I’ve always tried to carry a book or other resource with me that I could use to help me grow any time I was forced to wait. And I’ve taken responsibility for the things I can control:
• My Attitude—Only I will determine how I think or feel.
• My Time—Only I will determine how I spend time and whom I spend it with.
• My Priorities—Only I will determine what is important in my life and how much time I give to these essentials.
• My Passion—Only I will identify what I love and what I was created to do.
• My Potential—Only I will determine where I commit myself to grow.
• My Calling—Only I will answer to God someday for my purpose.
I will devote my energy to these things. At times this may cause people to be unhappy with me, but I won’t be unhappy with myself. Only I am responsible for how I steward these areas and the energy I give them. And only I will answer to God for them.
It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. When we think about it logically, we should expect the same results from the same actions, yet many people find themselves in ruts doing what they’ve always done but wishing for something different. How exhausting! Why does it happen? Because they never take the time to stop, figure out why their efforts aren’t getting positive results, and change course.
One of the ways successful people keep their emotional capacity high is by avoiding falling into this trap. Sure, they make mistakes. But they take the time to learn from them. They don’t follow the old rule of business, which says, “When it’s over, it’s over.” Instead, they follow a different rule: it’s not over until you’ve learned from it.
One of the principles I’ve embraced for many years is the idea that reflection turns experience into insight. Acting on this belief has helped me to grow, gain wisdom, and maintain a high emotional capacity. How do I do that? By doing the following:
Every evening I set aside time to reflect and ask myself questions. I think of this as an appointment with myself. One question I always ask myself is “What mistakes did I make today?” I do this because my mistakes are fertile ground for learning. Most people fear mistakes more than they love learning. I love learning more than I hate making mistakes.
Emotionally strong people look first at themselves and what they need to change when reflecting. They don’t focus on others or their circumstances. So after I identify my mistakes, I ask, “What can I learn from what I did wrong today?”
The most important conversations you and I have each day are with ourselves. Self-talk has a great impact on us. This is where we can coach ourselves to remain positive while looking at our negatives. One of the things I always do is remind myself that I’m learning and growing from my mistakes and that each effort gets me closer to becoming the person that I was created to be.
The next step in the process of avoiding making the same mistakes is to set yourself in the right direction. Speaker Jim Rohn said, “One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental ‘I should’ list.” As I observe my mistakes and learn from what I’ve done wrong, I determine the right direction I need to go to leave that mistake behind. This goes on my “I should” list.
I don’t carry the weight of my “I should” list very long. It’s been my practice to try to immediately move every task from my “I should” list to my “I did” list. Life is already stressful enough. We don’t need to be carrying the extra weight of too many “I shoulds” around with us.
Emotionally strong people are honest with themselves. The discipline of reflection is what I do to try to keep myself honest. That’s important because, as poet James Russell Lowell remarked, “No one can produce great things who is not thoroughly sincere in dealing with himself.”
As a child, I was taught this proverb: “He who rules his emotions is greater than he that takes a city.”4 I don’t know how hard it is to conquer a city, but I do know how hard it is to rule my emotions. And that’s what I work to do. I want to control my emotions, not allow them to control me.
I once saw a story about a guy who got to play a round of golf with PGA great Sam Snead. On the first hole, Snead made a terrible score, a seven—three strokes over par. As they exited the green to go to the next hole, Snead was unruffled. “That’s why we play eighteen holes,” he said.
His round ended that day four under par. He didn’t allow a low to control his emotions or his game.
In my early career as a leader, one of my mentors said, “There are not two good consecutive days in a leader’s life.” How true. After almost seventy years of life, I might even say there are not two good consecutive days in any person’s life. Every day contains something negative that threatens to wear us down emotionally.
You probably know that we shouldn’t let those things take us down too low, or we can become discouraged. But are you also aware that you shouldn’t let your highs take you too high? Success has a tendency to make us complacent. We start to assume that everything will automatically stay good, so we might rest on our laurels and try to protect what we have. We can begin to feel entitled, lose perspective, and stop working hard. In the end, the highs and lows can rob us of reality and prevent our activity.
How do I do limit the impact of my highs and lows? I practice the twenty-four-hour rule. Simply stated, I limit the effect of any emotional high or low to the twenty-four-hour period that follows the occurrence. If I have a great success, I celebrate for twenty-four hours. My team and I give each other high fives, we relive the victory, we compliment one another, but only for a day. Then we get back to work. We know that yesterday’s success won’t bring us tomorrow’s success. Today’s work does.
If I have a difficult time leveling myself out, I do things that will give me a more realistic perspective. I will go through Jim Collins’s book Built to Last and then look at all the companies that started strong but then failed. I will list all the things that could go wrong if I don’t continue to make positive changes and improvements in my life. Or I’ll look at the challenges that still lie ahead.
Similarly, if I experience a great failure, I allow myself twenty-four hours to feel bad, sing the blues, wear black, and grieve. Toward the end of my emotional time limit, I’ll begin doing things that will bring me back to a level of emotional stability. I’ll spend time with a positive friend. Play a round of golf. Share with someone the lessons I learned in my downtime. Focus on the good things in my life. Or help someone.
Action is the key. Whether dealing with highs or lows, taking action helps me to get back on track and regain control of my emotions. That’s how I stay emotionally strong.
Many people resist change, want immediate results, and hope for a life devoid of problems. However, those desires make a person emotionally weak. Why? Because life involves struggle. Emotionally strong people expect difficulties and learn to appreciate the growth they bring. As Lolly Daskal, founder and president of Lead From Within, writes,
It’s human nature to resist change—particularly when it comes in the form of adversity or challenges. But change is inevitable, and developing the trait of resilience helps us not only survive change, but also learn, grow, and thrive on it. Resilience is the capacity to cope with stress and adversity. It comes from believing in yourself and, at the same time, in something bigger than yourself. Resilience is not a trait that people are born with; it involves behaviors, thoughts, and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.5
Emotionally strong people do not expect immediate results. As they approach life, they know they are in it for the long haul. As they face struggles, they do so with energy and fortitude. They understand that genuine success takes time. They try new things and fail. They run into obstacles but persevere. They keep going, keep working. They focus on the right decisions they need to make, and make them quickly. They realize that they may change their direction overnight, but they won’t arrive at their destination overnight. They keep their eye on the big picture, and they don’t quit. They personify the attitude of Eric Greitens, author of Resilience, who wrote,
You will fail. Especially in the beginning. You will fail. And that’s not just OK, it’s essential. Without resilience, the first failure is also the last—because it’s final. Those who are excellent at their work have learned to comfortably coexist with failure. The excellent fail more often than the mediocre. They begin more. They attempt more. They attack more. Mastery lives quietly atop a mountain of mistakes.6
Greitens believes that as human beings, there are some things all of us must do to live well: breathe, sleep, drink, eat, and love. But he also believes that we struggle. We need challenges to master and problems to solve in order to be at our best. We can do that only when we master our emotions and appreciate our struggles.
Being an emotionally strong person who has high emotional capacity is about being able to start fresh every day and function with a clean slate emotionally. We can’t hold on to old emotional baggage and remain emotionally resilient at the same time.
Recently I was reminded of the importance of that ability to start fresh when I came across an idea expressed by Steve Jobs, who essentially said that we must learn to erase the board of our achievements and allow ourselves to become beginners again. I needed to take that advice this month as Margaret and I packed our things in preparation for a move. We were evaluating everything and trying to determine what to eliminate.
For about a month I looked over everything in my old filing cabinets. In them were over forty-five years of material I had filed for future use in writing and speaking. As I tried to process what I would take in the move and what I would get rid of, I realized these files had become a security blanket for me. As long as I had those files, I knew I’d have material to fall back on. But recently I had been challenging myself to write and speak more out of my own life experiences, to go deep inside of myself and pull out thoughts and ideas, not reach for my files.
So I had a decision to make, and for me it was an emotional one. Those file cabinets represented forty-five years of intentional collecting of thoughts and ideas. As I looked through each folder, I could remember why I filed items, how much I loved them, and how I had used them to help others. But as much as I wanted to keep them, I wanted to grow even more. I ended up saving fewer than ten folders. The rest I gave away.
No longer will I look to the files for help. Now I just ask the God who made me to keep remaking me. I kind of like what he is doing. I’m discovering that moving from security to risk, from the known to the unknown, requires courage and faith. And emotional capacity.
1. In the past, have you considered yourself to be emotionally strong or emotionally weak as a person? Why?
2. Which of the seven practices of emotionally strong people are you best at doing?
3. Which of the seven practices of emotionally strong people is most difficult for you and why? What could you do to improve in that area?