Something to readWorkload & wellbeing
Emotional Agility
A book on getting unstuck, embracing change and thriving in work and life, by facing hard feelings instead of fighting them
Why it’s worth your time
Pushing hard feelings away and forcing yourself to stay positive both tend to backfire, and this book offers a third way. Susan David, a Harvard Medical School psychologist, sets out how to face what you feel, step back from it, and act on what you care about anyway. It suits anyone who has been told to look on the bright side once too often.
How to handle difficult emotions at work
The book · About 7 hours of reading · Buy or borrow
How to get it
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- Start with the idea of getting hooked.
David's starting point is how thoughts and feelings hook us into unhelpful patterns, and the four moves she offers to get free: showing up, stepping out, walking your why and moving on. There's a chapter on emotional agility at work, worth reading once those four make sense.
- Make one small change toward a value.
Write down one value you want your work to reflect, like fairness, craft or learning. Then pick one small change in the coming week that serves it: how you run a meeting, who you help, what you say yes to. Small and specific beats a big resolution.
Good moments for this: after a setback at workwhen you feel stuck in a jobwhen you're told to stay positive
Keep going with Truest
Small actions add up. Truest helps you find the next thing worth doing, make the space to do it, and keep a record of your progress. It’s a private place to work on your career, and it’s yours, not your employer’s.
- It actually happensWe’ll put it on your calendar and remind you before it starts.
- Lands in your closeoutFriday's closeout asks for progress, priorities, and proud moments; this is one.
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
David describes getting hooked as blaming your thoughts for your actions, acting on old ideas you've outgrown, or needing to be right. Spotting your usual one is often the first step to choosing differently.
What might make this harder
You don't have to perform cheer to be professional. Name the difficulty plainly and pair it with what you're doing about it; that tends to read as steady, not negative.
Questions people ask
What is emotional agility?
Susan David's term for being flexible with your thoughts and feelings: facing them with curiosity and kindness, stepping back far enough to choose your response, and acting on your values rather than on whatever you feel in the moment.
What are the four steps of emotional agility?
Showing up (facing what you feel), stepping out (getting some distance from it), walking your why (acting on your values) and moving on (making small, steady changes to habits and mindset).
Is emotional agility the same as acceptance and commitment therapy?
Closely related. Theodore Kinni, reviewing it for strategy+business, notes it's rooted in acceptance and commitment therapy, which pairs mindful acceptance of feelings with action on your values. David adapts those ideas for a general and working audience.
Is there a shorter version of Emotional Agility?
Her TED talk on emotional courage covers the central idea in about 17 minutes, and she first set the idea out for a work audience in a 2013 Harvard Business Review article written with Christina Congleton.
What it says, and how it holds up
There are two familiar ways to handle hard feelings at work: keep them out of it, or stay positive. Susan David, who grew up in South Africa and now teaches at Harvard Medical School, argues that both are forms of rigidity, and that rigid responses tend to make hard feelings stronger. Her alternative is to feel what you feel and still choose what you do.
The book grew from a 2013 Harvard Business Review article she wrote with Christina Congleton, and it keeps one foot in work, with a chapter on how people get hooked on the job and how to shape a role toward what matters to them. Its four moves are easy to remember, and its ideas will be familiar to anyone who knows acceptance and commitment therapy, the approach it's rooted in.
In his strategy+business review, Theodore Kinni noted that David builds her case by weaving research together rather than offering definitive proof, and that a passage on social contagion, the idea that other people's habits can rub off on us, strays into controversial territory. It reads as a careful synthesis of other people's research, so its confidence rests on theirs. If you'd like a free way in first, her TED talk on emotional courage carries the central idea.
Some situations call for a decision more than a way of holding a feeling: whether to take a job, accept a move, or leave. The book will help you stay clear while you decide, but the decision itself calls for facts, conversations and time.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.