Self-Control

Check Your Attitude

One thing you need to make sure you always evaluate throughout each day is your attitude.  Always make an effort to not let your attitude dominate you—you should dominate it.  After all, it’s your attitude.  When you commit yourself to having a positive attitude, this will help you to avoid experiencing so many “bad days” and “bad moods.”  You can resolve within yourself that you’re not going to allow your attitude to cause people to look unfavorably on you.  Of course, people are going to judge you regardless of the type of attitude you have, but you have to admit that a repulsive attitude is certainly going to trigger pejorative critiques of you.

When you’re not the master of your attitude, this can affect your decision making.  If you have a negative attitude, this can result in you making decisions that can generate undesired outcomes.  For example, when you give the things you’re going through the power to control your attitude, and then your negative attitude results in you treating those who really love you wrong, your unappealing attitude can cause those individuals to steer away from you because of their fear of being hurt again.  Now, imagine how differently those who don’t really love you will respond to your unflattering attitude.

Mastering your attitude is a matter of self-control.  You have to be in control of yourself in order to be in control of your attitude.  When you find it challenging to control your attitude, then this reality should inform you that you have a number of things in your life that have spiraled out of control.  You must immediately work to gain control of those things.  It may not be best to try to work on getting the problematic things together in your life that are impacting your attitude alone.  You may want to seek professional counseling and/or the support of those who really love you.

If there are things from your past that continue to keep you from having a good attitude, then you need to seek professional counseling and/or support from those who love you to defeat those things in your past deleterious to your attitude.  It certainly will not hurt for you to ameliorate your spiritual life by beginning a personal relationship with God or becoming more dedicated to your extant personal relationship with God.

Your attitude reflects your character.  If you have poor character, you’re going to have a poor attitude.  For those with good character, the type of attitude you have can reveal some things you need to work on that could cause people to perceive you as not having good character.

Keeping our attitude in check should become one of our fundamental priorities each day.

When a person has been supporting and doing things for you for years, don’t let your damaging attitude communicate to him or her that you’re ungrateful for the things he or she has done.

A poor attitude can develop from immaturity.  If you’re struggling with a poor attitude, therefore, it may be a sign that you need to devote more effort to maturing.  You’re not always going to get your way—true adults understand this reality.

The reason why it’s vital for all us to check our attitude throughout each day is conditions and people may influence us to develop an unbecoming attitude, even for a short period of time.  We have to, therefore, be ready to exercise full control over our attitude, especially when anger-inducing people and circumstances emerge.

Have you checked your attitude today?

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Own Your Frustrations

Don’t take your frustrations out on others.  If there are specific people causing you to be frustrated, then direct your anger toward those individuals—not everyone else.  You have to learn how to take control of your emotions.  Your emotions are your emotions.  Don’t force everyone around you to have to deal with your problems.  When you’re having an unpleasant day, you shouldn’t try to make everybody else have an unpleasant day.  We can learn a significant amount about ourselves when we begin to think critically about how we handle being frustrated.  Just because you’re frustrated doesn’t give you valid justification to make drastic decisions.  When many people get frustrated, they start to acting like it’s the end of the world.

You have to understand that things are not going to go well for you every day.  If you’re an adult and claim to be mature, then you shouldn’t have to be told that everything is not always going to go well for you.

It’s okay to be frustrated from time to time—being frustrated is a normal part of the human experience.  You shouldn’t be frustrated all of the time, however.  If you’re frustrated all of the time, then you need to seek professional mental health treatment.  People should not shy away from getting mental health treatment.  One of the fundamental purposes of mental health treatment is to empower you with the ability to be in more control of yourself.

Don’t allow a frustrating day to become a serious crisis.  You have to understand that some things will happen and you will need to move on from those things.  Sitting around having a pity party is not going to change anything about your frustrations—it will only make things worse.  It’s very unattractive for you to resort to the most extreme measures when you’re going through frustrating moments.  People will begin to think that it’s best for them to not be around you.  You don’t want people to isolate themselves from you simply because you fly off the handle every time you’re frustrated.

Learn how to handle your problems responsibly.  If you need assistance with conflict resolution, please seek professional assistance.  You may even find it useful to speak with mature and successful people around you who can give you counseling about how to better deal with conflicts in your life.  If you’re always overreacting to problems you have in your life, then there’s something truly wrong with you mentally.  It’s okay to admit that you have mental problems.  By admitting that you have mental problems, you can get the help you need to address those problems.

Again, we all have been frustrated before.  Of course, we all would love to never experience frustration.  However, we know that we can never eliminate experiencing frustration.  How we respond to frustration is much more important than being frustrated.  Acting responsibly and maturely when you’re frustrated can help you to develop into a better person and allow you to discover things about yourself you didn’t even know.

Make every effort to stay in control of your emotions. Stop overacting.  Live responsibly.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison