In every area of your life, your emotions play an important role. Aside from the impact it has on your relationships and your work, your emotions also determine your success or failure in life.

You may not be aware of it, but your emotions can be the fuel that waters the soil. When you’re enthusiastic and positive, you’re feeding the soil with good fertilizer. And when you’re negative and worrisome, you’re pouring out acidity on the soil.

This is the reason why some people get what they want much easier while others have a hard time getting what they desire. There may be some people who excel in a specific area but fail in the other because of the emotional mistakes they keep doing.

Finding balance and flow in this life is what we all desire for. This can be done when we know how to anchor our emotions.

Doing this doesn’t require you to add something to your life, instead, it only requires you to avoid committing the emotional mistakes that keep you from becoming strong mentally.

Mentally strong people don’t commit these emotional mistakes. Avoid them too and become a mentally strong person.

5 Mistakes Mentally Strong People Don’t Do:

1. Mentally strong people don’t deny how they feel.

Being mentally strong and acting tough are two sides of the spectrum. Owning your emotions and acknowledging your pains are signs of mental strength. But when you suppress your emotions by saying you’re okay for not getting that promotion, you’re only acting tough.

There’s nothing wrong with letting people know how you feel because that is the emotion you’re feeling at the moment. Just because you’re feeling that way doesn’t mean you’re showing a weakness or having the intention to stay that way until the end of time.

Showing your vulnerable side is healthy. Downplaying your emotions is not. It’s only by acknowledging your emotions that you let it pass. From there, moving on is much easier.

However, if you deny your emotions, you’re in the danger of carrying an emotional baggage that may surface everytime a trigger pops up.

2. Mentally strong people don’t avoid emotions that make them feel uncomfortable.

In the quest for positivity, humans often fall into the trap of avoiding to feel the emotions that create discomfort. The hard truth is, uncomfortable emotions are part and parcel of every human existence.

The presence of these emotions doesn’t mean we’re less of a person. It’s how we deal with these emotions that can either make or break us.

Our greatest strength doesn’t come out when we’re feeling comfortable. Rather it only surfaces when there is a dire need. And it’s in these times that we will know we have an inner strength that can sustain us in tough times.

Face every uncomfortable emotion head on because it’s only in dealing with it that you will find the courage to face your fears. Once you’re able to rise from any discomfort, you’ll come up more confident and more willing to get out of your comfort zone.

3. Mentally strong people don’t chase after happiness.

More than anything else, people these days keep telling you to do the things that can make you feel better and happier.

While there’s nothing wrong with doing the things that can give meaning to your life, believing that they can make you happy is another thing.

When what you have in mind is to do the things that can make you happy, you’re only acknowledging the fact that you’re not happy about yourself.

So, you start a project that you think can make you happy only to find more unhappiness when this project doesn’t satisfy you. Don’t chase after happiness because, as what the wise men keep telling us, happiness is not the goal rather it’s how we become along the journey.

Instant gratification doesn’t contribute to long term contentment either.

4. Mentally strong people don’t give their power away.

You alone are in control of your emotions and no one else. People can’t control you when you don’t allow them to.

Similarly, you can’t control others. Even if there are people who appear to be weak, you don’t grab the opportunity of abusing them. Doing a thing out of selfish interest is giving your power away.

You can’t avoid encountering people who can make you feel bad, but you have the choice as to how you respond. And if you’re mentally strong, you’re able to handle any situation in an appropriate way.

5. Mentally strong people don’t live in the past.

The past serves only two purposes, to make you heal old wounds and to provide you lessons that you can use in your journey.

Something is not right when you keep going back to the past and dwelling on what could have turned right. You have the ‘now moment’ where you can do all the good things you wish you could have done in the past.

Heal every ounce of painful emotion that keeps you tied in your past, if there is any. Only then will you be able to live your today more gloriously.

Your emotions are the outer manifestations of who you are inside. Being mentally strong is a skill that can get better with constant practice.

The more you learn how to regulate your emotions, the more you stretch your mental muscle to achieve your highest potential.