Let's be honest: Life can be really hard — and sometimes people develop little personality traits or habits to make them better equipped to handle the hardships.
To better understand what kind of traits or habits people develop, Reddit user u/Educational-Act-1081 asked r/AskWomen: "What personality trait have you developed over the years that have made you stronger/more equipped to handle life’s challenges?"
The answers were incredibly honest and thoughtful — so we gathered several for you to read below.
1. "The ability to not take things personally — and instead, maintain a healthy level of indifference."
2. "Self-expression. I used to be stoic and less emotional. I used to appear far more stable and more resilient. I'd dissociate from my own emotions at the drop of a hat in order to function better. But the problem was that I was so out of touch with my own emotions that 99% of my life was about reacting and surviving. I had no idea what I liked or what I wanted. I didn't like myself, or my life, or the world. In the past few years, I've been paying more attention to me. Being more selfish. Expressing my femininity. Crying in front of people. Dancing in public. The thing is, if you saw me then versus now, you'd probably infer that I'm less stable than before. Weaker. More sensitive. But I'm actually learning to feel my feelings."
"This makes me stronger because I actually have motivation now. I actually want to make a good life for myself and don't want to settle for a tolerable existence anymore."
—u/pm_me_ur_headpats
3. "Self-love."
"If you can think of that critical voice as a persona, and find a way to make peace with it, that'll turn its volume down. So, rather than taking what that voice says to heart, or pushing it away, it's more like a gentle correction.
Example: inner voice says, 'That was a dumb thing to say, and no one likes you.' You gently correct, 'It was perfectly fine to say in that conversation, and actually, I'm loved.' It may sound a little like two voices talking, but you know that's kind of how it feels. And if you think of that critical voice as not you, it can help create distance."
4. "I'm not sure if it's a personality trait, but I've been living my life operating under the idea that failure has lessons that we can only learn from by first acknowledging the failure, and then trying to grow from there."
5. "Firmness. I had to learn to be firm in my boundaries, firm in asking for my needs and wants, firm in establishing myself as someone who deserves respect."
6. "The older I get, the less I seem to care. Especially in regards to people. I just carry on and mind my own business."
"This. Older women in my life always told me that they gave fewer and fewer fucks from about 30 onwards. Now that I'm in my early 30s, I feel like they were right. I think as you get more comfortable and secure with yourself, other things start to fall into place a little more easily.
I'm no longer trying to force relationships, I'm more willing to walk away from things that are draining me, and I just overall feel like I have a better handle on life than I did 10 years ago. It's great!"
7. "The ability to tell myself to shut up when I start overthinking has been valuable to me recently. There’s no point spending hours staring at a wall and thinking about how sad and depressing life is when you could just…not. I’m good at sending myself in to a spiral but being able to maintain self-discipline and distract yourself is vital."
8. "Being decisive. Many of my friends will be wishy-washy about decisions for hours. I used to be like that, but I think the ability to just make a decision and stick with it is very, very useful for tricky situations. I still have a lot to learn, though."
9. "The ability to take criticism and feedback in the spirit in which it was given, especially in my relationships."
"My boyfriend and I give each other a hard time sometimes, just joking around, but I went too far the other day and joked about something I didn't know he was insecure about and hurt his feelings. He told me he didn't like what I had said, so I apologized and gave him a hug and thanked him for telling me so I could avoid that topic in the future.
He cried and thanked me for understanding and not getting defensive because he has never been with someone that reacted positively when confronted with their own bad behavior."
10. "Learning to say no, and choosing to ignore dumb people instead of arguing with them."
11. "It's allowing myself to feel negative emotions. My first instinct every time when I feel sadness or tears coming is to push it away, not accept it. Now, I have learned to say to myself, 'It's OK to feel sad; it's OK to cry.' All that suppressed unhappiness did me a lot of harm in the past, of course, and it took me a long time to accept that I was entitled to feel upset about upsetting things."
"No prizes for guessing where it came from: a childhood where tears were scorned and the only emotion ever expressed by adults was anger, even though the kids were severely punished for that, of course.
It's such a relief to not be a tyrant to myself about emotions anymore. I feel so much stronger for it because they don't get suppressed and fester."