Tools and Strategies For Managing Your Emotions (part 1)

How do you effectively manage your emotions? There are several ways to do this effectively, and we're going to start with part one, managing your emotions by controlling the influence you have in your life.

Negative emotional influences

What are you allowing to consume your time, energy, and your thoughts? What and who we put ourselves around has major control over how we think, feel, and our behavior. If you want to have better control of yourself, you have to have a little more control over what you allow into your environment. Do you put yourself around negative people? We've all had someone in our life who's always down, depressed, or in a crisis.

Have you ever heard the saying, you are what you eat, as in the nutrition you put into your body? It has to do with how your body functions and works. Well, think about your friendships in this way, as far as an influence. You are only as healthy emotionally as the connections that you have.

Do you have people in your life that aren't headed in the same direction as you are? Have you outgrown some of the relationships that you have now? With family, it's not always easy to stay away from them. Some situations we can't get away from. We can limit that interaction. You take on the energy of people around you, almost like a magnetic force.

How does other's energy influence you?

If you want to be more successful in your career, then you have to surround yourself with people who are more successful in their careers. If you want to be a better athlete, surround yourself with athletes that are better than you. If you need to get off drugs and alcohol, you have to surround yourself with people who either don't use drugs and alcohol or have gotten themself off of drugs and alcohol.

Using the positive energy of others

If you're here because you have a loved one who's addicted, and you want to figure out how to control your emotions, guess what? You have to put yourself around people who can either help you do that, as professional help or support groups, or at least surround yourself with people who help you feel better.

The last thing you need is someone tearing you down or hearing negative stories. It's not going to help. Be intentional about the friends that you keep, the music you listen to, the television you watch, the websites you go to, the YouTube videos you view, and for goodness sake, manage that social media.

You're undoing all of the hard work you've been putting in. This stuff drags you down. The good news is it can catapult you forward if you're strategic about it.

Complicated relationships

I know you may be thinking deep in your heart that there's somebody or maybe even a few people that you need to get rid of, or not spend as much time with, but you may feel very mixed up about this because you have a long history with this person, or you do care about them and love them.

It's hard for you to leave them behind. That is completely understandable. I'm not asking you to be mean to anyone. I'm not asking you to have a breakup conversation, but you can take some tiny steps to allow that person to have less influence in your life. Ultimately if you get yourself better and healthier, you'll have a better ability to help that person.
The hard truth is we outgrow some of the people around us. I know it's heartbreaking, and it's sad, but clinging on to that when you've outgrown it, is only going to keep you stuck.

Watch this video next because it's about how to effectively manage your relationships, which goes right along with this topic.