Are Your Emotional Coping Skills Preventing You from Being a Happy Person?

Let’s get one thing clear. The concept of happiness is kind of exaggerated. It really is overrated. It seems that everybody in this dog is hell-bent on becoming happy. Now there’s nothing ultimately wrong with that but the problem involves definition. 

 

Let’s get on thing straight. In the United States and in the western worlds, general happiness is usually defined in externalist terms. Happiness is something that you get from the outside. It doesn’t come from within. It’s an emotional state that you feel from within, but ultimately is triggered by factors people and things outside of you. You have to wake up at the right side of the bed, people have to be kind to you, things have to work in a certain way, a lot of the things that you are expecting to happen have to happen a certain way, and then and only then would you feel happy. 

 

This really is too bad because if you define happiness along this similar line, you probably are not going to be happy all that often. Even if you reach that emotional state, it’s not going to last long. How come? These definitions don’t really position you for long lasting and truly intense happy moments. They don’t, because you’re not in control. Happiness either happens from time to time or it doesn’t. It tends to happen at a role of the dice or when things line up. That’s how way to live your life. It’s much better to look at happiness as a product of your emotional coping skills.

 

When you focus on skills, you focus on a series of actions that you can control. By being aware of what you’re doing at a specific time and place, you will put yourself in a position of becoming aware of the consequences of these actions and feelings. By doing so, you’ll be able to choose how you feel. 

 

You’ll be able to choose how you respond and what to remember what to focus on and this can lead to a more sustainable level of happiness. This leads to control. Compare this with a person who just basically waits to see if people are going to be nice to him or her. He or she waits if certain things will line up. Maybe they’re waiting for a new job or a new position to open, maybe they’re looking for a raise or a scholarship or looking to get good grades at a test. 

 

The problem is when you put yourself in a position where you waiting for somebody else to get their act together to deliver happiness in your life, you’re playing a losing game. You’re not in the driver's seat of your life and as you probably already know life is what happens when you’re making other plans. 

 

Assume more control over your life by assuming more control over you emotions coping skills across a wide variety if situations that happen in life. 

 

Get a clear understanding of how this works and to establish a blue print of increased emotional control. 

 

Emotional intelligence is crucial to life's success. It’s high time that you make your emotions work for you instead of against you.