Life is tough, right? 

We all face challenges and setbacks that are hard to deal with and push us to our limits. Yet some people seem to take these challenges in their stride. 

It’s not that they don’t experience hardship and distress, it’s just that they can bounce back more quickly than the rest of us. People like this are emotionally resilient. 

As someone who’s been intrigued by emotionally strong people for many years, I’ve noticed that they all share certain habits, and experts credit these habits for their emotional strength. 

Interestingly: the secret to emotional resilience is more about what you don’t do, than what you do. With that in mind, today I’m sharing 6 things emotionally resilient people don’t waste their time on, according to psychology.

Let’s get started. 

1) Seeking validation from others 

Do you ever notice how more and more people these days seem to overvalue, external validation from others through things like social media likes and compliments from strangers? 

People who lack validation in childhood or have low self-esteem tend to seek validation from others. They struggle to find their self-worth from within and rely on others for it instead. 

You won’t catch an emotionally resilient person seeking validation from others. They see this as a waste of time because they know their worth comes from within.

Sure, they can appreciate a nice compliment from someone but they don’t rely on others to feel good about themselves. They know that’s an inside job. 

2) Worrying about what others think

Emotionally resilient people don’t waste much time worrying about what other people think. 

They’re confident and independent people who know they’ll be ok no matter what happens. They don’t need anyone but themselves. And that confidence allows them to be exactly who they are without worrying about what others think.

Too many of us worry about the opinions of others and fear rejection or humiliation to the point that it controls us. We end up people-pleasing and hiding who we truly are just to fit in. 

“When we stamp around the world trying to please others and [be] who we think people want us to be rather than who we really are, we live life on their terms, not ours,” notes psychologist Michael Gervais.

People with a strong emotional backbone have figured out that there’s a strength in being true to who they are. They carve their path and live life on their terms without much consideration for what others might think about it. 

3) Focusing on the negatives during challenging times

When times are tough and you’re down on your luck, it’s hard to look past the negatives and focus on being positive. Lots of people get caught up in negative thinking and doom and gloom. 

Resilient people don’t waste time dwelling on negative emotions because they think to themselves, “What good will that do?” 

Instead, they have this crazy knack for creating positive emotions even during challenging events in their lives. Research backs it up revealing, people who bounce back quickly do it by focusing on positive emotions, often by remembering happy times.

Another way that emotionally resilient people avoid dwelling on the negatives is by practicing gratitude and focusing on what they’re grateful for rather than thinking about what they’re lacking. 

Being able to let the negatives go and focus on the positives, even when times are tough is a superpower of emotionally resilient people. 

4) Stressing about things that are out of their control

Have you ever had a sleepless night worrying about something that you had no control over?

We’ve all been there, right? It’s human nature to worry a little of course but emotionally resilient people keep this in check. They don’t worry excessively about things they can’t control. 

Instead, they learn to be flexible and adaptable no matter what life throws at them. These traits act as their coping mechanisms when unexpected things happen. And experts agree this is one of the things that makes them so resilient.

Dr. Harry Barry, author and CBT expert (cognitive behavioral therapy) says “Resilient people are better and quicker at deploying coping strategies and hence can adapt to difficulties with better comfort.” 

I experienced this myself, a while back. 

When my company announced layoffs would happen later in the year, a lot of my colleagues were stressed out and worried saying “What if it happens to me?”. I tried to worry less about what I couldn’t control and focus more on what I could do to help me cope if I got that news.  

I started documenting my work achievements, updated my resumé, and became more active on my LinkedIn, expanding my network. And my preparation paid off because I did lose my job but I felt prepared and comfortable to handle the transition.  

5) Ignoring their emotions

You might think that people who can bounce back from challenges quickly, suppress and ignore their emotions as a way to forge forward quickly. 

In reality, the total opposite is true: emotionally resilient people allow themselves to feel everything; happiness, sadness, anger, and frustration. They recognize emotions are a normal part of life and accept them.

Being able to accept and understand emotions like this is associated with emotional intelligence and emotionally resilient people tend to be highly emotionally intelligent. 

Research has found that emotional intelligence has a positive and significant correlation to resilience. It means that resilient people are also usually very good at recognizing, understanding, and regulating their emotions. 

There’s no way they’d waste time ignoring them or trying to suppress them when they’re fully capable of managing them.

6) Feeling sorry for themselves  

The last thing you’ll ever find someone who is emotionally resilient doing is feeling sorry for themselves or wallowing in self-pity. It’s just not part of their DNA.

Sure, as highly emotionally intelligent individuals, they’ve got plenty of self-compassion and they have high levels of empathy for themselves and others around them but that doesn’t stop them from choosing action over pity. 

I learned to develop resilience throughout my life playing sports with a team that wasn’t very good. We didn’t have much skill but we had a lot of heart. We made it to a couple of finals but we lost a lot more than we ever won. 

Many times it would’ve been easier to hang our heads and feel sorry for ourselves. But the resilience we developed kept us going. And eventually, it paid off. After 11 years of trying we won the local cup final. 

Without the resilience we’d developed as a team, we never would’ve stuck it out and achieved the success we did. Emotionally resilient people know that feeling sorry for themselves is a waste of time, instead, they pick themselves up and go again.

Final thoughts

Be honest: how many of these things have you been wasting your time on? 

Life is tough and sometimes you can fall into the trap of doing some of these things without even realizing it. But the important thing to remember is you’re in control.

Everyone is born with different amounts of natural resilience but the good news is, it’s something that you can develop over time. If you want to be more emotionally resilient a great first step is to stop wasting time on the 6 things we’ve outlined today.