Book excerpt: A practical self-help book on mental strength and emotional toughness by a clinical counsellor, researcher, coach and online content creator with a big YouTube following and genuine star quality. This book is the ultimate guide to getting emotionally strong, guiding you in taking responsibility for your own wellbeing and not letting others control your thoughts and emotions. Written in the trademark down-to-earth, direct, humorous and warm style that has made counsellor Julia Kristina so popular online, this book arms its readers with the skills to take over the steering wheel in their own lives, no matter what challenges they face. Julia takes you through the thoughts, emotions and behaviours that hold us back, from perfectionism and fear of failure, to anxiety and guilt, to people pleasing, self-sabotage and taking things too personally. In each case she provides easy-to-use and super effective tools for emotional self-mastery that she has road tested in her coaching and counselling, and in her own life. For example, use the Thought Ladder to disrupt your negative thoughts and beliefs. Instead of telling yourself to stop thinking "I am totally crap" and just think "I am great", Julia shows you how to incrementally challenge and undo the original negative thought and reframe it through a series of steps - like rungs of a ladder. Another example is the STOPP Process: a 5-step method that allows you to identify, separate from and process/take positive action on a difficult emotion that is occurring. Always rooted in real life, highly achievable and based in the author's understanding of human psychology, Julia's tools and techniques really will help you break through whatever it is you think is holding you back.