Another important quality of emotional resilience is believing that you have some control over your life. It motivates you to cope with even disasterous situations that you might not otherwise be able to. People who do not feel that they have any control over their environment are vulnerable to feeling helpless and depressed.

Of course, it is never possible to have perfect control over every situation. Birth and death are just some of the many things in life that are not possible to avoid. Given that fact, control is often described as having two parts:

• Primary Control - where you do have the ability to actually change a situation.
• Secondary Control - where you have the ability to change how you think about a situation.

For example, no matter how hopeless a relationship situation may seem, you do have the ability to change it. It may be difficult, but you can directly influence your behavior(including leaving) and change the situation itself. This is primary control.

On the other hand, if a hurricane is coming your way, you cannot control the weather. However, you can decide how you think about it (Secondary control), whether you will panic or calmly assess your options, and decide what you will do to prepare (something you do have primary control over).

Click below to go on and learn how to develop a healthy sense of personal control.