Anger Management for Success
- Emotions and Success
- Anger Management for Success
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Anger management comes with a lot of stigma. People seeking out skills and techniques about anger management are thought of as angry or violent. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anger management is all about understanding your emotional state, increase self awareness and improve relationships with others.
Anger management skills include stress management, empathy, impulse control, forgiveness, managing expectations, positive self talk and communication skills improvement.
This is the first topic that I am dealing with in this new series of emotions. It was not originally going to be the first topic. But yesterday someone really pissed me off. They just happened to know how to press my buttons. They said all the wrong things, did all the wrong things. I just about had enough of them. I got angry. I got mad.
Then I started thinking about anger. I asked myself why I was angry, why this person had managed to make me feel that way. I felt that I could not effectively do my work or focus on the good in life. Then it hit me, I am not alone. Many of us experience anger on a constant basis. Some know how to deal with it. But one thing is clear; anger keeps us from achieving our objectives.
For some people, anger becomes a habit, a natural state. We become what we think about and do on a regular basis. We are creatures of habit. The purpose of this blog is to inspire you to be the best you can be. Anger does not bring out the best in people and I hope to inspire you to better manage anger. This blog post is a letter to me as much as it is a letter to you.
Anger in different areas of life
- Family – Children get angry with parents for not letting them have their way. Anger may be directed towards siblings and other relatives. Parents may direct their anger towards their kids for not behaving as they should.
- Relationships – People in relationships may stockpile resentment and give each other the “silent treatment”. They may avoid intimacy, affection and communication because of anger. Some of the reasons for anger may be minor while others maybe major, enough to shake the foundation of the relationship.
- Career – An employer may be angry at the employees for not doing enough to help a company meet its objectives. Employees may be angry at the employer for an array of grievances. People may also direct their anger to co-workers, competitors, customers and business partners.
- Society – Some people may feel slighted by society and blame others for their misfortunes. Inequalities in society may breed anger sometimes with serious consequences.
- Politics – Anger at the stand taken by one government may lead to an invasion or a world war. Many people are angry at lawmakers for laws that do not serve their objectives.
What is Anger?
Anger is a strong emotion; a feeling that is oriented toward some real or supposed grievance. It is an emotional state that may range from minor irritation to intense rage.
Anger clouds judgment. It is distracting and kills concentration. Anger can bog you down and makes mountains out of anthills.
Anger is a result of failed expectations. Anger is the difference between what you expected and what you experienced. If you expect people to do something within a particular timeframe and they do not do it, you may get angry. How we chose to interpret things and why they happen is a strong determinant of how angry we get.
Benefits of Anger
Anger is not entirely evil. It is an internal message that tells us that something is not right. It is a message that tells us that we are not happy with how things are. Without anger, people would just accept the status quo and not advance.
- Anger may fuel the desire for success. Some people use anger to spur them to action, to reach within their depths and find success in what they do. Anger can motivate us to work harder to accomplish our goals.
- Anger helps modify society. Laws and what is socially acceptable can be modified by anger. Many laws have come into existence because of public outrage. Many laws on domestic violence, child abuse, police brutality and animal rights can trace their roots to anger.
- Anger helps us ask better questions. If we keep asking the same questions, we get the same answers. Anger makes people ask questions that may illuminate a different way of thinking that may lead to success.
- Anger builds relationships; depending on how anger is dealt with, it can enhance the quality of relationships. Anger helps highlight differences in people’s way of thinking and resolving the anger may help the relationship get stronger.
Dangers of Anger
- Anger is self perpetuating – Whenever a person feels angry they start focusing on what is making them angry. The more they focus on something, the more reasons they get for being angry. Many relationships are broken by anger and rage.
- Anger leads to failure - Anger clouds judgment and cause people to make mistakes. Anger prevents people from listening and taking advice. It messes up with the ego and leads people to a path of destruction.
- Anger leads to arguments and confrontation – Anger can lead people to violence, abuse and confrontation. Anger prevents people from reasoning together and causes disagreements.
- Anger stifles creativity – Many people are not at their element when angry. The people who feel slighted are on a lower plane of thoughts than winners. Anger makes people only as creative as it would take to right the wrong, but not to move beyond that. Anger steals focus and concentration.
- Anger reduces happiness – An angry person is not happy as they find all the reasons not to be. Happiness is a state that does not sit very well with anger.
- Anger saps energy – Anger takes away energy that could be better used in pursuing success and improving the quality of life.
- Anger prevents responsibility – Angry people tend to blame others instead of taking responsibility. It is very hard to succeed in life without taking responsibility for ones fortunes or actions.
Anger Management Techniques
- Use a journal to record every time you feel angry. Proactively notice when you are about to get angry. Analyze the associated feelings and thoughts. Start addressing those issues one by one. Address each of the thoughts and feelings.
- Avoid victim mentality – A victim mentality makes people angry. Adopt a winner’s attitude as opposed to that of a victim. Winners make things happen while things happen to victims. Winners take responsibility while victims blame others. Winners look at the positive in situations while victims look for the negative.
- Use Humor – Laughter is the best medicine. Humor helps one to get a more balanced perspective on issues instead of being dangerously angry. We say that one day “we shall laugh about this” when in difficult situations. Why not laugh about it today? Avoid sarcastic laugh and jokes as they may just perpetuate the reasons for anger.
- Calculated Response - Delay your responses when angry. You may need to take time out or try your best to control your impulses. Remember that you always have a choice to do right or wrong. Think of repercussions before taking rash action when angry.
- Ask Better Questions - Use anger to solve deep problems. Try and learn from the reason why you are angry and think of ways of preventing future anger.
- Manage Expectations - Avoid unrealistic expectations and give room for error to others.
- Empathy - Try put yourself in the shoes of others to help you understand how your anger may affect them or their reason for doing that which made you angry in the first place.
- Positive Self Talk - Fill your mind with positive messages and think of ways of improving your life and the situation instead of focusing on the negatives and the details of your anger.
- Forgiveness - Forgive yourself and those who wrong you. It does not mean turning the other cheek and letting people walk all over you. Instead communicate your unhappiness and resolve differences then move on.
- Communicate Effectively - Be assertive in your communication. Express your needs assertively without hurting others or resulting to aggressive behavior.
Summary
I hope this article has helped you look at the emotion of anger in a new perspective. Anger has some benefits but it can slow us down in the journey for success if not handled properly. Handling anger is a necessary and important part of success.
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It’s weird how things can go wrong when anger takes control over you and you react in ways that make you live a life of regret.
It has happened to me on a number of occassions, as I have a very short “fuse”. Thanks bro for this article, it’s inspiring, i have tried some of the stuff you have tackled as anger management techniques, but like I have found out, easier said than done. It can be quite hard trying them out, but I guess the key is to keep on trying rather than accepting the anger as a aprt of you, that you cannot control.
Benefits of anger are also a nice part of the argument, I remember helping out fellow staff in my old workplace by fighting against the harsh conditions we worked under, so much I was almost made shopsteward by the staff team at the age of 24, which would have been living hell to me. I think what happened then was that I had a great fear of responsibility..But that anger also turned me into a loser, for I resigned just before the terror attacks in the US in 2001 which led to a great tourism recession in Kenya, leaving me jobless for a year..victim of my anger or of circumstances beyond my control? I find it hard answering myself..
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man, umegonga ndipo!!! anger is like a set of sharp teeth that may bite the owner’s tongue if not leashed.
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Taking time away from the object or person making you angry works…..Thank you for highlighting that anger can be destrucitve if its not controlled… We may not avoid anger but we can control how much we allow it to get to us. We can choose to get angry for a day or an entire month, over the same issue. But its clear the dangers of keeping anger outweigh the benefits. I refuse to be manipulated by anger. Thanks Dan, keep doing your thing.
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This is a well thought blog. The message it has is of grate value.
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I never thought there was such a strong relationship between anger and success. Thanks Dan for this article. It is spot on.
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Thanks for your enlightening article about anger and how to control it.People have different boiling points and in this case the higher the better.
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Scripture says Do not let the sun go down on your anger.. The devil uses anger to get into us.. never give the devil a loop hole…
I made up my mind early in my spiritual life not to let any man/woman make me hate them.. Don’t get me wrong.. I don’t like the sin but I love the person.. God loves all of us. and so do I….
There will never come a day when I will get angry and hate someone… I refuse to be offended by anybody… positive thinking.. way to go..
Thx Dan
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Thank you for this wonderful blog .infact the blog was timely to me .I had been undergoing anger the better part of today.Someone very close messed with me today and I was fuming like fire .I haboured ire that nearly melt my life ad asked myself thousand questions why I a person I truly trust can real soil my life with false allegations .untalk for. Innuendo and just to provoke me.
Nothing is vital and of great need like having tips to manage anger cause can be very costly ad distructive.we say hasira hasara.
Once again thank you.
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