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Balancing positivity with realism is vital to dealing successfully with the world around us. It is difficult to interact with other people if you don’t have confidence in who you are and belief in your abilities.

It makes it hard to build the skills and personality traits that will help you succeed in your working life and personal relationships.

Managing emotions and reactions to life experiences

Understanding yourself and managing change can only be done when you are able to recognise and deal with your emotions.

You will experience many emotions over your lifetime. Here are five key ones that you will have to manage at some stage in your life.

Anxiety

Anxiety is a strong combination of fear and worry. The things that make us anxious are sometimes hard to identify. It could be financial worries or relationship problems, health issues or work pressures. It often expresses itself as frustration, anger, or sadness.

The best way to deal with anxiety is to recognise the problem, change what you can, and let go of the things you can’t change.

Stress

Stress is a natural physical and mental reaction to both positive and negative experiences. In the short term, stress can help you cope with tough situations.

However, severe and continuing stress can cause a variety of symptoms that affect your health and wellbeing.

Stress can be triggered by the pressures of everyday responsibilities at home and work. It can arise after negative events like divorce or the death of a loved one.

You can manage stress by exercising, getting a good night's sleep, relaxation and taking time to schedule your time and responsibilities.

Loneliness

Feeling lonely is difficult. Most emotions are best managed by talking to trusted friends and family, but loneliness distances us from those around us.

Dealing with loneliness requires making an effort to speak with people. You might be surprised by how many of your friends feel the same way. Joining a club, or talking to someone you don’t know well, can help.

Frustration

Frustration is caused by things not turning out the way that you had planned. We all make plans in life — big and small — but almost nothing happens the way we hope. Some people take these disappointments better than others.

Coping with frustration requires an understanding that you can’t control everything. You have to let go of some of your expectations and learn from what went wrong.

Sadness

Sadness is a common emotion. It is caused by any number of life events. It can be trivial, like losing a football match or failing an exam, or more serious, like the death of a loved one.

The best way to deal with sadness is by talking to friends and family. Sharing our feelings of sadness, and listening to others’ experiences with it, can help us put it in perspective.