Your emotional health is at the crux of your quality of life. Without happiness, hopefulness and well-being, it’s difficult to reach your full potential and embrace each day as it comes.

Your emotional health is also intricately tied to your physical health, such that an emotionally imbalanced person will be at a greater risk of chronic diseases and acute illnesses like colds and flu.

One study found, for instance, that happiness, optimism, life satisfaction, and other positive psychological attributes are associated with a lower risk of heart disease.

It’s even been scientifically shown that happiness can alter your genes. A team of researchers at UCLA showed that people with a deep sense of happiness and well-being had lower levels of inflammatory gene expression and stronger antiviral and antibody responses.

There is some research to suggest that some people are born naturally happier than others. In one study of nearly 1,000 pairs of adult twins, researchers at the University of Edinburgh suggested that genes account for about 50 percent of the variation in people’s levels of happiness.

The underlying determinant was genetically caused personality traits, such as being sociable, active, stable, hardworking, or conscientious.  But this does not at all suggest that you’re born with a certain emotional “personality” and powerless to change it.

Anyone can improve their level of “emotional success,” and your environment and life circumstances also play a role, as there are many other indicators of emotional well-being outside of your genes (or your age).

7 Habits of Emotionally Successful People

In many ways, your level of emotional success is based on your own choices and attitudes. While some people are able to roll with the punches, others get easily sidelined by challenges along the way.

In order to “toughen up” emotionally, such that you’re able to live your life feeling naturally strong and confident in your choices (and in yourself), try some of these 7 habits of emotionally successful people.

1. Take Control

Rather than sitting back and letting life happen to you, take control and decide to make things happen for you. Become the ruler of your own destiny, so to speak, and take calculated steps to achieve your goals and desires.

2. Be Flexible

Life is likely to throw you a few curveballs. When that happens, will they throw you off course or will you be able to pivot when you need to? Being flexible means you have an open mind and will adjust to whatever life throws your way.

3. Learn from Your Mistakes

Mistakes often offer valuable lessons that you can use to improve yourself in the future. Treat them as tools for improvement rather than letting them define you.

4. Create Specific Goals

Students who set goals earn twice as much money as those who do not. Further, those who set clear, written goals were earning 10 times as much. Setting and writing out your goals helps you to have a clear direction and plan for achieving your dreams.

5. Accept Yourself

Strength comes from within, so learning to accept yourself is crucial to being happy. Resist the urge to look for acceptance from others. Once you’re comfortable and strong in your own sense of self, relationships and success come naturally.

6. Keep Your Stress in Check

If you’re under stress, it’s harder to control your emotions. Figure out what works for you to keep your stress levels under control (exercise, talking with a friend, alone time, etc.), and be sure to engage in it regularly.

7. Let the Little Things Slide

Stressing and fretting over circumstances you can’t control or which don’t really matter in the big picture will drain your mental reserves and wear you down. Resist the urge to become a control freak and instead let go of the little inconveniences, upsets, and disappointments that come along the way.

Choosing to Be Happy

What you’ll notice about the habits above is that these are primarily choices you can make for yourself. It’s thought that genetics account for about 50 percent of your “innate” happiness while life circumstances make up another 10. The rest is under your control, and the first step to harnessing it is to choose it and believe you can be happy.

Research shows, for instance, that when people were told to attempt to feel happier when listing to music, they were (as opposed to those who were told to simply relax). It was the intention to become happier that made a difference.

It might help to consider your emotions as a form of energy. According to Dr. Bradley Nelson, when you feel an emotion, what you’re really sensing is the vibration of a particular energy. Each emotion has its own vibratory signature, and when intense emotions are felt, they can become trapped in your body, much like a ball of energy.

These “balls of energy” can become lodged just about anywhere in your body, where they can then cause disruptions in your body’s energy system, which underlies your physical system much like an invisible matrix.

Your body cannot tell the difference between an actual experience that triggers an emotional response and an emotion fabricated through thought process alone—such as when worrying about something negative that might occur but has not actually happened, or conversely, thinking about something positive and pleasant.

The latter, of course, will help your body to express many of the health benefits associated with happiness, while ruminating or focusing on negativity can literally manifest disease.