No LimitsSample

You may have never considered you have an emotional capacity, so let me begin by explaining what I mean. Emotional capacity is the ability to handle adversity, failure, criticism, change, and pressure in a positive way. These things create stress in our lives, and the inability to deal with stress or emotional pressure undermines a lot of people. They give up, break down, or do unhealthy things in to try and escape.

People with high emotional capacity are able to manage their emotions and process through difficulties. That allows them to increase their capacities in other areas and move closer to reaching their full potential.

Having known and observed people with high emotional capacities, there are seven practices that can help anyone increase their emotional capacity:

1. Proactively Deal with Emotions—emotionally strong people never say, “That’s just how I feel. I can’t help it.” We should never become victims of our emotions; the faster we can recover from life’s disappointments, process through it, and move toward action, the more emotionally strong we become.
2. Don’t Waste Time with Self-Pity—it’s tempting to exaggerate our situations in order to help us feel better. But reality is often much softer than our worst-case scenarios. Choosing to face reality and act is far better than wasting your time drowning in negativity.
3. Don’t Allow Others to Control Relationships—consciously or unconsciously, most people seek to pull others to the level where they are most comfortable. Emotionally strong people understand that they need to stay true to themselves while honoring relationships—even if it means letting go of some people.
4. Don’t Waste Energy on Things You Can’t Control—my friend, Fred Smith sums this up wonderfully: “You must understand the difference between a fact of life and a problem. A fact of life is something you can’t control or fix. A problem is something you can fix.”
5. Don’t Make the Same Mistakes—it’s okay to make mistakes, but it’s not okay to repeat them. Emotionally strong people learn from their mistakes by reflecting on them, learning what they can do differently, and making the decision to take action in a new way.
6. Don’t Ride the Emotional Roller Coaster—we’ve all experienced emotional ups and downs, so learning to level out the highs and lows is essential for emotional capacity. I like to practice the 24-hour rule: no matter what happens, I get 24 hours to process my response to an event, good or bad. After those 24 hours, I put it behind me and take action on something else.
7. Understand, Appreciate, and Grow Through Struggles—life is full of struggles. If we don’t learn to accept that truth, we miss out on the greatest way to increase our emotional capacity. Working our way through even the most painful situations makes us healthier in the long run.

You can’t hold on to old emotional baggage and remain emotionally resilient at the same time. Just as God’s mercies are new every morning, our emotional scorecards must be new as well. 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.