Oh my God! (read this part slowly). I can’t recall how many times I’ve lost the ability to emotionally deal with my setbacks, and I won’t lie, I’ve had many plans sabotaged because I spent a lot of time dealing with those setbacks.
But, sometimes, you can’t blame it all on yourself. Looking at the damages done, starting up again, and dealing with the pain make it difficult to get over your emotions faster.
Life is difficult, if you want to make progress and become successful, you have to make a lot of sacrifices. The hard truth is, you don’t get to ‘grieve’ long. The more you harbor your pain, the longer it takes you to recover or repair the damages done. If you don’t take care, you will miss a lot in life and won’t have the capacity to build a good life.
For example, if you sacrifice for a five-year-long relationship and end up being betrayed by your partner, you get heartbroken. Recovering from the heartbreak of that relationship becomes difficult. When you think about starting the relationship process again (meeting someone new and the duration needed to study the person) your heart skips a beat and you fall back to your sorrow. Before you realize it, you have spent so many years hating relationships, distrusting people, and driving ‘good potential partners’ away from you. You tell yourself you enjoy the single life, but deep down in your heart, you’re afraid of being hurt or starting afresh. This emotional setback takes a lot away from you since you spent so much time entertaining your loss and grieving for long.
Instead, you could acknowledge your pain for a short while, assess yourself and set a new relationship goal. It isn’t easy but necessary.
Now, take a moment and brood over this question: How long does it take you to recover emotionally from a setback?
We want to succeed so badly, but are we willing to do what it takes? Are we willing to forgo all bodily pleasures to attain our goals? Well, this post will get you reassessing your life.
I came across a post from Tom Bilyeu on Instagram that got me thinking about myself. It got me asking myself some deep questions about my progress in life and how I deal with my emotions.
Who’s Tom Bilyue?
Tom Bilyeu is “the co-founder of the billion-dollar brand Quest Nutrition and the co-founder and host of Impact Theory. Personally driven to expand people’s vision of wellness to a 360-degree view that encompasses body and mind, Tom created Impact Theory to help people develop the skills they will need to improve themselves and the world. Through his content and public speaking, he inspires people around the world to unlock their potential and pursue greatness. Tom was named one of Success Magazine’s Top 25 Influential People in 2018 and Entrepreneur of the Year by Secret Entourage in 2016.”- https://impacttheory.com/
The post says: “The half life of your negative emotion is directly correlated to your odds of success. Work on reducing the length of time it takes you to emotionally recover from a setback to accelerate your forward momentum.”
Let’s break the post down and expand our understanding.
What is emotion? According to American Psychological Association, emotions are conscious mental reactions (such as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feelings usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.
What is a negative emotion?
Psychology dictionary defines a negative emotion as usually an unpleasant or unhappy emotion which is evoked in individuals to express a negative affect towards an event or person.
The top three negative emotions are sadness, anger, and fear; others include frustration, guilt, resentment, jealousy, etc. Undealt negative emotion can disrupt your life or cause you to harm yourself and others. Negative emotions cause distress.
It’s impossible to completely prevent yourself from experiencing negative emotions; It’s part of being human. What you can do is to work on how you allow the negative emotions impact your life. Work on how long you entertain or deal with the negative emotions you feel. Why? These negative emotions are “directly correlated to your odds of success.”
When you fail at something and you spent the rest of your time (could be weeks, months, years. It takes some people years to overcome failure) distressing on your failure, you will lose the opportunity to assess that failure and align yourself to work on the things which contributed to the failure.
Negative emotions shouldn’t be ignored or pushed away. They should be accepted, objectively analysed, and dealt with. For an instance, If you feel angry, accept that you’re angry, find out why or what contributed to the anger, and gradually let go of your anger. Allow the anger to subside down. In other to ensure that your life or goals are not affected by your negative emotions or setbacks, “work on reducing the length of time it takes you to emotionally recover from a setback to accelerate your forward momentum.”
Here are some comments under Tom Bilyeu’s post that caught my attention.
JimKwik- “Let’s have a real conversation on what it really takes to achieve anything in life: Emotional regulation. Resilience. Risk. Dedication. Focus. Goals. Persistence. Failure. Action. Sacrifice. Study. Habits. Hard work -> All come before success. In the Dictionary. And in Life.”
Myfabcoach_fabi- “In my personal opinion, negative emotions can indeed have an impact on one’s success. When we are consumed by negativity, it can hinder our ability to think clearly, make sound decisions, and take necessary actions towards achieving our goals. It’s important to address and manage negative emotions to create a more positive and productive mindset.”
Julecrisante- “Absolutely. Feeling like a victim has never brought me anything. There’s always a season but it’s up to you to decide how long that has to last. Process, learn, feel, grieve….then get back up. You owe it to yourself.
In other to take control over your negative emotions, you have to identify those negative emotions, understand that they’re part of human reactions, identify the source of the emotions, and work on the length at which it takes you to deal with those emotions.
featured picture: Image by Freepik
