As we enter the holiday season, many of us may be feeling a little more angered than usual. Many of my executive clients are feeling the weight of a year filled with market pressures, increased competition, longer working hours and higher performance expectations. And at home, digitization and always-on technology have blurred the boundaries between our work and personal lives, removing the natural buffer between them and costing us our health.
As we become overwhelmed, it’s easy for unpleasant emotions to dominate our awareness. But we can train our brains to be more positive. Gratitude, through a conscious awareness and repeated focus on the good things that come our way, amplifies our appreciation of both our blessings and our benefactors.
Happiness is causal and brings more benefits than just feeling good. Happy people have been shown to be more successful, more socially engaged and healthier than unhappy people. Researchers studied the impact of emotions on illness and discovered that people who experience a lot of positive emotions such as gratitude, love or happiness are less likely to catch a cold or the flu than those who experience more negative emotions.
Three Amazing Things for Anger Management
One of my favorite exercises in my resilience workshops is to ask participants to write down three amazing things that happened to them that day. This is usually met with a certain degree of skepticism. On one occasion, an attendee at the back of the room responded to this request with eye-rolling and a heavy sigh. “Nothing amazing has happened to me today, just normal stuff,” she muttered, giving me a look that plainly said I had lost my mind.
I asked her to describe her day so far. “Well, I woke up in my hotel room, had a shower and had breakfast before coming here.” She shrugged. I asked if her hotel room was comfortable and had a nice bed. She confirmed it did. I asked if the shower had hot water and was restorative. She affirmed that it was. Finally, I inquired about her breakfast, which turned out to be a substantial buffet of delicious choices. As she finished cataloging these normal events, I asked her to consider whether a nice room, a soft bed, a hot shower and a delicious breakfast could possibly be considered amazing.
At this point, the rest of the attendees started to get the idea. Hands shot up as they shared their own stories, everything from getting their children to school on time to sipping coffee with their significant other to a smile from a stranger. Nobody had won the lottery. There were no life-changing stories of survival or overcoming hardship. These were the stories of everyday moments. But as they started to look at them through a lens of gratitude, everyday moments became amazing. Not to be outdone, even the naysayer joined in, tentatively at first and finally with gusto, as she shifted her perspective to see the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Three Ways To Focus On The Good use of Anger Management
- Contemplate the good.Focusing on the positive each day can shift our perspective. Writing down the good things in our lives helps us keep them in mind. Writing in a gratitude journal for 15 minutes before bed every day can help you sleep better, as reflecting on moments of gratitude builds neural pathways to optimism, regardless of whether we naturally see the glass as half full or half empty.
- Replay the extraordinary. By writing down three amazing things every day for a week and then looking back on the list, we can shift our perspective and appreciate the small gifts and simple pleasures that we so often overlook. This may feel awkward in the beginning, but persistence counts. Within a few weeks, you may find that this new task shifts your mindset to a more positive one.
- Pay it forward. Expressing gratitude to those who you are thankful to have in your life is a powerful way to boost your own happiness. Writing a note of appreciation shifts the focus from ourselves for a moment, and on to the other person. By recognizing and acknowledging the impact others have in our lives, we not only make them feel good, but we may also feel good ourselves.
It’s About Perspective for Anger Management
Having an attitude of gratitude does not mean never experiencing negative emotions. Negative thoughts have their place, particularly when dealing with events over which we have no control. Consciously cultivating an attitude of gratitude and training our brains to notice the positive can help us avoid being overwhelmed by day-to-day angerors. Keeping our gratitude higher than our expectations often puts things in perspective.
During the hectic holiday season, there is no better time to take a moment to pause and reflect on the good things in our lives. Taking a moment to count our blessings and appreciate the people we care about is a powerful way to build a book of memories to look back on years later.
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