How to Flex Your Emotions

4 traits of emotionally flexible people and practical ways to build them

Emotions are unpredictable. Most of them don’t follow rules or schedules. They don’t follow rules or schedules—they show up uninvited, often at the most inconvenient times. You can’t plan for anger or pencil in sadness for next Tuesday. And you definitely can’t tell anxiety to wrap it up because you’ve got a meeting in five minutes.

Even with more positive emotions, it’s not much easier. Try forcing yourself to feel excited on command, enthusiastic every Wednesday, or happy in the middle of a tense meeting—it doesn’t work like that.