How you respond to stressful events is at least in part under your control. You have the ability to choose (to a point) how difficult and painful any given situation will be.

Developing a sense of personal control means working to be better at:

• knowing when to work actively to change a situation, and when to instead accept it and work on changing how you view it
• being brave enough to actively make changes to improve your life
• managing your emotional reactions so that when you are faced with a stressful situation you cannot immediately change, you are able to change the way you view it and behave according to your values

As you have already learned, you can recognize your emotions and make choices regarding how you will react - versus reacting automatically and, possibly, inappropriately.

As you may have guessed, the goal in developing these qualities of emotional resilience and intelligence is to be happier. The interesting thing is that they are all related and build upon each other. The better you recognize all of your emotions and learn to control them, the braver you become when making positive (even difficult) changes, and the happier and more optimistic you will become - leading to a very positive cycle of self development.

Click below to learn about Happiness.