Controlling Your Anger Effectively - Three Steps That Will Help You Feel Happier Right Away

Do you ever find yourself saying things when you're mad that you end up regretting later? Do you wonder how you were ever so angry to begin with? Are you sick of how often you need to apologize for things you say? Don't worry; you are certainly not alone. This article can help answer the questions "What's with all this anger?" and "How can I stop and think before I make such a mess?" Keep reading for three steps to living a happier, less angry, and more fulfilled life.

Managing anger is very important for us to be able to live a peaceful, happy, and guilt-free life. Unpleasant emotions can wreak havoc in our daily lives, especially the all-too-familiar emotion we call anger. When we're angry, it is hard to control what we say. Words seem to pop out of our mouth before we realize what we've said. Learning the skills that help us manage this emotion gives us a sense of control over our day-to-day lives.

Look back on how you responded when you were caught up in the moment of an intense fight or argument. Often, at these times, we are not capable of stopping or monitoring the words that come out of our mouths and we might even think we don't care what we say. The truth is that we do care and once we have calmed down and gotten over the initial anger, we find ourselves full of regrets. Don't think you have any regrets? Well, if that were true, you wouldn't still be reading! The key to handling arguments and unpleasant conversations is all about understanding why we speak these words in anger in the first place.

Looking Beneath All That Anger

Throughout our lifetime, we create our own beliefs in relation to ourselves and others. Many of these beliefs create limits on what we can achieve in our lives. Undiscovered limiting beliefs like these can unintentionally make us angry and cause us to say things we later regret. You can overcome these limitations by knowing three things:

To begin with, it is important to understand what limiting beliefs are and how they generate our present view of the world. After that, learning to quickly notice when these limiting beliefs are starting to take control is essential. Finally, we want to make conscious plans for how we respond in these situations, so that our limiting beliefs take a backseat and we are back at the wheel.

If you don't take the time to follow these steps, you will keep repeating the same reactions without ever figuring out why.

By holding on to our limiting beliefs, we often react in anger before we completely assess the situation. The two primary reasons for anger tend to be either that we want something to go the way we wanted and it's not, or because our limiting beliefs are in control. Most likely, to some degree, both are at play.

Limiting Beliefs and How to Recognize Them

We can tell when we arrive at one of our core limiting beliefs because they often sound something like this: "People are so selfish and I don't matter at all,' 'I'm not competent and people expect way more than I can do,' 'I'm helpless and people can be dangerous." Sometimes, it is a mixture of these or a combination of other similar statements. Yours may sound similar or some variation of these themes.

No one we know (including ourselves) is completely devoid of this type of limiting belief. We are not saying these are negative things, or that we need to understand the reasons they exist, or even that they need to be fixed.

Knowing that a belief is only a repeated thought turns this painful cycle into good the news. If you want to stop being limited by your beliefs, all you have to do is become conscious of these repeated thoughts, called "limiting beliefs," and just start thinking differently--simply create a new pattern. If you focus on these new thoughts, you will no longer be controlled by the limiting beliefs and will move forward to create a happier, more satisfying life.

There are far too many reasons why we end up reacting the way we do to fully discuss them in this article. Read our "how-to" points below to help you get started on consciously responding, rather than habitually reacting to situations in your life. We hope they will help!

First, it would help if you understood how we created these limiting beliefs in the first place. In the video, "How to Reclaim Your Authentic Happiness," we describe how we encounter situations early in life and misinterpret them. These new interpretations become our limiting beliefs. These limitations are stored in our subconscious and become habitual. Even when we no longer remember the event, we still react based these beliefs.

Second, it is critical to gain clarity about the things that are most important to you or your deeply held values. We offer a free worksheet that can help you to discover what you value and what is essential to your happiness. Do this exercise and the next time you begin to experience upset, you can ask yourself, "Is how I'm acting in this moment in harmony with what's most important to me?" If it's not, come up with at least one thing you can do that would be in harmony with your values.

Third, we suggest that you start identifying the specific thoughts you are having when you first start feeling upset--before it turns to anger. Start noticing how your body feels at those times. Where do the sensations first start to happen? Describe the earliest sensations you notice and get familiar with them.

To sum up, use your feelings of discomfort as an early warning system. Remember to return to your values. They will lead you to outcomes that you most desire. As we talked about earlier in the article, "Are you angry? Good!" anger can be used as an integral part of our emotional guidance system. Do not suppress it, but use it to find those values that may be missing in your life and in all tense situations.