4 Steps to Help You Unlock Emotional Agility

Try these in-the-moment strategies to get unstuck and build resilience.

You’ve probably heard of emotional intelligence, the ability to manage both your own emotions and understand the emotions of people around you. People with high emotional intelligence have been shown to have greater job satisfaction and better productivity, and employees are 400% less likely to leave their companies with a highly emotionally intelligent manager.

Emotional agility goes a step beyond emotional intelligence. It allows you to not only be aware of your emotions, but to approach them with a feeling of productivity and mindfulness. Dr. Susan David, a member of Thrive’s Scientific Advisory Board and the best-selling author of Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life, says emotional agility can make you more resilient and adaptive in difficult situations. “Emotionally agile people demonstrate flexibility in dealing with our fast-changing, complex world,” she explains. “They are able to tolerate high levels of stress and endure setbacks while remaining engaged, open, and receptive.”

The problem, according to Dr. David, is that many individuals end up getting caught in their negative emotions and try to suppress them or ignore them, instead of dealing with them head-on. In order to break out of this cycle and lean into emotional agility, there are four strategies she suggests:

1. Recognize your patterns

Acknowledging the patterns that lead you to feeling trapped in your negative feelings can help you identify what’s causing them in the first place. Often, these are scripts that you repeat often in your own head — negative loops that replay on their own, like lashing out defensively if you feel criticized, or giving in to negative-self talk when you’ve made a mistake. The next time you feel upset or overwhelmed, take a moment to pay attention to what you’re telling yourself and where that self-talk is coming from.

2. Name it to tame it

Psychologists recommend using the “name it to tame it” strategy during stressful or frustrating times, where you label your thoughts and feelings as clearly as possible so that you can feel a better sense of control and understanding over what’s going on inside your mind. To start, try writing down one thing that’s causing you stress. When we can label our emotions, we can start to gain control over them instead of feeling overwhelmed by them.

3. Accept your feelings

The next time you’re having a bad day, try your best to pay attention to your feelings and let yourself experience them. Put all distractions away and take a moment to just breathe through what you’re feeling, rather than trying to push the feelings down. Conscious breathing can shift you out of fight-or-flight mode and activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for rest and relaxation. If you need some help, try this Box Breathing Reset.

4. Act on your values

When you’re experiencing a negative emotion, ask yourself if your response aligns with your values. By giving yourself the space to process what you’re feeling, you can open up the solution space to more options that align with your values and handle the situation from a more rational place. It may even be helpful to make a list of a few of your core values, and refer back to the list during times of stress.