Why "Positive Vibes Only" Won't Make You Emotionally Strong

One of the topics that come up most with my clients, no matter who they are or what they’re struggling with, is the question of how to handle difficult emotions. I’ve seen many people work hard to “manage” or “get over” their emotions, treating them as if they are dials on a control panel that they can calibrate just right, if only they tried hard enough. 

But what if there's a whole different approach to emotions that doesn't require wrestling with them? That's where the idea of emotional agility comes in.

I talked to the psychologist who coined the term “emotional agility,” Dr. Susan David, Ph.D. She's one of the world's leading management thinkers and an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist. Her Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life, is heralded as a management idea of the year and winner of the Thinkers 50 Breakthrough Idea Award. Dr. David's TED Talk on the topic went viral with over one-million views in his first week of release.

Today, Dr. David shares fascinating takeaways and tips (as well as a few brilliant metaphors) about the concept of emotional agility through the lens of her own experiences as a teenager who lost her father to cancer as well as research into the science of emotions.

Here's an abbreviated and paraphrased transcript of our conversation. As always, I encourage you to listen to our complete conversation. Just click on the audio player above or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

What is emotional agility?

Emotional agility is the set of skills we need to be with ourselves in healthy ways—the ability to be with our thoughts, our emotions, and our stories in ways that are compassionate and curious so that we learn from them. According to Dr. David, it also means being courageous, “because often we face ourselves or our situations in a way that requires us to take courage. [Emotional agility] is being healthy with ourselves in these ways so that we can connect with the reality of our present situation.”

Research shows that when people set happiness as a goal, they actually tend to become less happy over time.

There's a trend encouraging us to “think positive” and cultivate positive emotions while banishing negative thoughts and emotions. But research shows that when people set happiness as a goal, they actually...

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