5 Strategies Mentally Strong People Use to Keep Their Feelings in Check

Your emotions affect how you perceive events and how you decide to take action. When you're anxious about something--even something completely unrelated to your current task--you'll likely avoid risks.

Despite the major influence of emotions, most people spend very little time thinking about their feelings. In fact, most adults struggle to name their feelings.

But labeling your feelings is key to making the best decisions. When you understand how you're feeling and how those feelings might cloud your judgment, you can make better choices.

Labeling your emotions can also take the sting out of uncomfortable feelings like sadness, embarrassment, and disappointment. So check in with yourself a few times each day and identify how you're feeling.

Emotions aren't either positive or negative. All emotions can be helpful sometimes and harmful at others.

Sadness is helpful when it reminds you to honor something or someone you lost. But it can be harmful if it tries to keep you from getting out of bed and tackling your day.

Anxiety is helpful when it talks you out of doing something dangerous. But it's not helpful when it keeps you from stepping outside your comfort zone in a positive manner.

So after you label your feelings, take a minute to identify whether that emotion is a friend or an enemy to you right now. If it's helpful, allow yourself to embrace that feeling fully. If it's not helpful, change how you feel by either changing the way you think (or what you're thinking about) or how you're behaving.

Behaving contrary to the way you feel can shift your emotional state. For example, smiling can evoke feelings of happiness when you're feeling down. Or taking a few slow deep breaths can calm you when you're feeling anxious.

It's important to have a few activities in mind for boosting your mood on a bad day. The easiest way to do that is by creating a list of things you enjoy doing when you're in a good mood, like going for a walk, listening to upbeat music, or having coffee with a friend.

Then, when you're in a bad mood (and your emotions aren't your friend), engage in a mood booster. Changing your behavior can shift your internal state and help you to feel happier.

Many people go through life working really hard to avoid discomfort. Ironically, however, they end up feeling uncomfortable almost all the time because they're wasting all their energy running away from things that may cause discomfort.

Embrace a little bit of discomfort. The more you expose yourself to uncomfortable feelings (as long as you do it in a healthy way), you can gain confidence in your ability to tolerate distress.

The stronger you become, the better equipped you'll be to face the challenges that will help you reach your greatest potential.