12 Habits That Make You Emotionally Weak

Mental Strength can be seen as one of the qualities we admire most in personalities. Strength of willpower to overcome obstacles. Strength of principles to maintain one’s integrity when challenged. Strength of humility/self-awareness to learn from faults. Strength of faith when doubt and fear threaten to overwhelm one’s beliefs.

Mental shortcomings aren’t necessarily a loss.

I don’t put too much stock in the idea of extremes being all-good or all-bad. I’m okay with having my own “mental weaknesses” and I do my best to be understanding of the mental weaknesses of others.

Let me explain your emotionally weak stages in the following ways:

Experience ::> Interpretation ::> Behavior ::> Emotions (positive or negative)

First, It’s well-known fact that emotions originate from our life experiences. We, humans, experience both good and bad situations in our life. You can’t point to a person who experienced only good or only bad (or at least it’s a rare scenario). So, there is no problem in this area.

Second, it’s how we interpret it. Some people even though when they face bad situations take that as a lesson in life and try not to repeat the same mistakes and there are some other kinds of people who are gifted with lots of good things but are never satisfied with anything.

It is the way that people interpret their experience that creates behavior which in turn brings out emotions. So according to me, positive interpretation makes people emotionally strong, and negative interpretation makes people emotionally weak.

By ‘weak’, you probably mean ‘insecure with themselves which usually means that they aren’t willing to put in their ideas about doing anything because they’re afraid that other people will hate them for it.

Following are the habits that make you emotionally weak.

1. You care too much what other people think of you: Every day, several people wake up, with the sole goal of becoming offended by you. Don’t disappoint them.
2. You can’t keep promises: I’m not even talking ’bout promises to others, but yourself. The best example is working out. You told yourself you’d get into shape, but as soon as you were tired from work or school, you won’t even go to the gym.
3. You get overwhelmed with the smallest problems and immediately throw your hands up and surrender: Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy or without failure, rejection, and sacrifice. Don’t expect that everything is handed to you on a silver platter. I failed in a relationship before I met my dream boyfriend. I failed at getting lean and muscular numerous times before I got the “hang” of it.
4. You’ve been FAT for years but you’re doing NOTHING to fix it: Look, there’s nothing wrong with being fat. If that’s what you want, then you do you. But, if deep down inside, you’d love to be lean, healthy, and confident in your skin, then why don’t you change?
5. You’re inauthentic: Contrary to what you might think, I wasn’t always as harsh and straightforward as I’m now. I was a shy, timid, spineless idiot. I never spoke my truth and always agreed and smiled. Needless to say, my life was a mess. I was being used, manipulated, and treated like a doormat. That was entirely my fault. I let it happen to me because I couldn’t say “No.”
6. You always WAIT for Motivation to Strike: This one is related to the above point, but it deserves to be standalone. You’re always waiting to feel motivated to change your life, but because you never “feel” the motivation, you don’t do the hard stuff that’s necessary. Motivation will always be a fickle beast and you can’t rely on it to show up when you need it. That’s the bad news. The good news is, you can create motivation by ACTING as if you’re motivated. Motion beats meditation.
7. Strained relationships: Heavy and jam-packed schedules gripped by deadlines make for the major part of a person’s day, leaving no time for his personal life and relationships. There is a lack of communication and no time left for conversation and hearty talks with wife and children. This leads to conflicts in relationships and hurts the persons involved.
8. Stressful work-life: Harsh relationships with seniors, works pressures mounting by the day, deadline completion pressures all add up to the stress levels of a person beyond the safe capacity. this leads to making a person vulnerable to hurt and pain even more.
9. Constant Criticism of Others: We all know these people. They spend every moment of every day talking crap about people. They can’t seem to stand anyone’s family, friends, bosses, wives, and husbands. They are always focused on everyone else and the bad things that these people have done to them.
10. Can’t Control Their Emotions: To me, this is a big one. Have you ever tried to have a calm and important conversation with someone about something that is bothering you and they fly off the handle in less than 1 second? Do they yell, scream, laugh at inappropriate times? Can they never seem to get a handle on their emotions?
11. Allowing One Bad Experience to Define your Life: We have all been there. It might have been an accident, rejection, divorce, or death of a loved one. Some people will stay in that pain instead of seeking help or permitting themselves to move on. A sign of strength is to move forward after dealing with the pain and loss of life’s tough moments.
12. Zero Self-Esteem/ Self-Confidence: Zero or no personal value. Self-deprecating self-talk all the time. Do you know people who are always putting themselves down? Saying what horrible people they are on a loop? They will never try anything new because they think they will automatically fail at it.

Disturbances in any of these areas make a person emotionally weak.

Another thing that makes you emotionally weak are as follows;

1. You have never looked failure in the eyes, tears leaking out of your eyes, on your knees, and still refused to stay down.
2. All it takes is one rejection to break your spirit. Which you never recover from.
   One girl rejects you, which translates to “all girls are trash. They don’t want a real man like me.”
3. You have crippling insecurities. If anyone points out anything that remotely makes you uncomfortable, you freeze and panic.
4. You can’t handle criticism. You would rather be comforted with a lie, than hurt by the truth.
5. You would rather be surrounded by cheerleaders, than a friend who demands you to hold yourself to a higher standard.
6. You have a victim mentality for all aspects of your life. You cannot be held accountable for anything.
7. You are extremely sensitive. No thick skin. The slightest comment can throw off your mood.
8. You have an extremely pessimistic personality. You exaggerate the negative but minimize the positive.
9. You refuse to understand another person’s perspective, simply because it clashes with your views. You maintain the “my way or highway” mentality.
10. Being passive-aggressive is your go-to method for handling any conflict in your life. You are unable to properly handle a situation and tiptoe around to avoid confrontation.
11. You make grand declarations that are baseless/Jumping to conclusions.
    A friend canceled on you a few times. You call her and say “WHY ARE YOU PURPOSELY AVOIDING ME? DO YOU HATE ME?”
12. Baiting for compliments/attention screams insecurity.
13. You are not honest with yourself. You are incapable of sitting with your thoughts and being truthful about the good and bad aspects of your life.
14. Someone incapable of ever having a serious conversation. Everything is a joke to them, even when the conversation is serious. Either that’s a defense mechanism or other deep-rooted issues.
15. Someone incapable of self-reflection. You are unable to assess your growth. How you have grown from point A to now point B?

Last but not least, Compassion for yourself and others with these issues is the best way to be. No one needs negative judgments from others, because until you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes, you are unable to truly understand.