I’ve seen a curious thing happen quite often in the "manosphere"—understood as the side of the internet where men look for answers regarding how to develop their masculinity: young men come to try and learn how they can stop letting their emotions control them, as they know this is a key skill in masculine men, and the answer they get from the “gurus” or accounts they look up to is to simply "shut up, and be a man", or even more simplistic variations thereof.
Don't get me wrong, this is —not kidding— pretty good advice. Men need to be told to quit complaining and act as men should. Men do need to man up. But for a young man looking to learn and toughen up, this advice is simply not enough, as it doesn’t give him any strategies or action steps to take in order to successfully “man up” and build the mental toughness and emotional stability he is looking for.
I want to give you some practical advice beyond simply suggesting you “man up”. Here are 8 proven strategies to build emotional stability and resilience.
8. Have a few rocks to hang on to
Stormy periods are when your mental toughness and emotional strength are tested. These will always come at some point in a man’s life, and they are no more than finite phases that happen when chaos overcomes the established order of our lives.
Imagine yourself a castaway at sea, peacefully drifting through the clear, quiet waters. The point is, you're swimming, and it's peaceful. The sun is shining and you feel at peace. You're moving forward and you have room to think about what you want to do when you get to the shore. Then, without any warning, the storm comes. You are lost among the waves, trying to survive. There is no more "forward". You don't know where you are going, you are solely focused on survival. Chaos all around. And then, a rock. You grab on to it and manage to pull yourself up. Suddenly, the storm doesn't appear too bad, because you have some room to think. You can take a deep breath and wait safely for it to pass.
Such is the nature of life. Periods of peace followed by periods of chaos. The main goal at times of peace is to thrive, and the main goal in the midst of chaos is to literally and figuratively survive, get through it, and emerge stronger.
I've found out that during times of chaos, the most effective strategy is to remain disciplined and cling to some rocks. If you let tumultuous days change your routine too drastically you'll feel completely overwhelmed and as if you have no control over your circumstances, which will make it difficult to remain in control of your emotions. You should always have a few rocks that you can hold on to —meaning, you should have certain habits or actions that you engage in no matter what—, and make those non-negotiable. You need to have things in your life that are completely constant, regardless of the circumstances.
I'm talking family, friends, activities, healthy habits. For example, no matter how preoccupied or stressed out I may be, I try to keep a few things of my routine constant: my morning prayer, 30 minutes of reading + coffee as soon as a I wake up, BJJ training, 8 hours of sleep, and dedicated time with my loved ones. You can choose your own rocks, of course. The important thing is to have them.
You need to keep some elements of order when chaos ensues, because otherwise you'll get lost and it will be much more difficult to keep a cool head. I promise you, it's much easier to get through hard times when you manage to keep some aspects of your regular life unaffected by the particular, chaotic situation. The worst thing that you can do is let chaos taint your entire life.
7. Lift yourself up
Look, there is enough negativity and ill will in the world for you to add to it. There are enough —evil— forces trying to put you down and lead you to despair. You have to be your own best friend. This strategy doesn't require too deep of an explanation. Don't talk negatively to yourself, don't even engage in the type of self-depreciating jokes that everybody seems to love nowadays. Those things matter. The way you talk to yourself matters. Your words and thoughts matter.
If you are constantly beating yourself up, it will have a negative impact on your emotional stability. You can choose to use words and thoughts that build you up and toughen your mind, or ones that hurt you deeply.
Negative self-talk goes directly against what St. Paul instructs:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
— Ephesians 4:29
Would you bash and abuse someone you care about? If not, why do you do it to yourself?
Make your words and thoughts pure and positive, and become a friend to yourself. I guarantee, you will be better suited to face the challenges of life with a strong mind and great emotional stability if you have your own support.
6. Develop emotional awareness
Ironically, the people that are most controlled by their emotions are those that are the least aware of them. Your emotions hold more power over you if they remain somewhat hidden, blurry, and undefined. It is when you don’t really understand your emotional triggers that they can surprise you and wreck your stability.
It’s wise to start becoming aware of your emotions and triggers. When you do, it will be much, much easier to stay in control at all times, because you will be able to recognize your emotions starting to flare up, and have enough time to take rational steps to stop them.
Make it a frequent practice to reflect on your emotional state during the day. If you start feeling sad, angry, etc., stop for a moment and think about it. Subject those emotions to the light of reason, and ask yourself why it is you’re feeling that way.
The more frequently you perform this exercise, the easier it will be to get those emotions under control before they take the wheel and become a problem.
5. Build confidence through achievement
Emotional control and mental toughness are directly correlated to confidence. So much so that they might even be considered synonyms in many cases. Confidence precedes self-control. It’s insecurity what’s most often the cause of emotional outbursts and breakdowns. True, deep confidence serves as a shield against mental weakness, as it convinces you of your own capabilities to withstand and overcome challenges.
This kind of confidence is built mainly by proving your competence over and over again, in what I call “the self-confidence cycle”.
By stacking up achievements (ie. conquering difficult challenges), you prove to yourself time and time again that you have what it takes. This in turn allows you to keep a cool head, think rationally, and hold back from unwanted and uncontrolled emotional expressions, because as said before, it’s your insecurities which lead you to behave emotionally as a man. As you start to replace those insecurities with honest confidence, you will naturally become more stoic.
Read this again: there is no real emotional stability and mental toughness without deep-rooted confidence. Make it a point to build self-confidence, and it’ll become a great asset in your path towards godly masculinity.
Check this out if you need help in building unbreakable self-confidence, and take a look at these other articles on that same topic:
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