Anger Management Part 3 of 3

Become the extinguisher not the fuse!Learning to manage your anger in your lifePart 3 of 3By Daniel Theyagu 

In the last two segments I wrote about how you can manage your anger.  I mentioned that anger can be positive and negative anger.  I shared some ways in which you could effectively channel this powerful emotion so that you do not easily succumb to its control.  Here I am going to share on some techniques on how you can manage the anger of other people in your life.  Your ability to manage the anger of others will alleviate you to a higher level of respect as people in your life will see you as a rational and reasonable person and someone whom they can trust. 

 

The ‘other people’ here refers to anyone who is of importance to you. These people could be your customers, working colleagues, bosses and family members.  Just like you these ‘other people’ also feel angry from time to time.  The worst thing you could do to them and to yourself is add fuel to that anger and create animosity that would become difficult to rectify later on.  The better alternative is to see what you can do to maintain your inner peace and try to bring the other person to your plain of thought to work things out calmly.  This can only occur if you are able to manage the ‘other people’ anger effectively. 

 

Here are some reasons why other people get angry and what you can do about it:

 

 

Customers

If it is your customer, the person may be angry because he or she is feeling frustrated as they are not getting the service or product they were anticipating.  Some common causes of this frustration are being put on hold for a long time in the your company’s telephone answering system; getting pass from one department to another; inadequate information given thus making the customer call back again and again; miscommunication and contradiction of information given and making the customer feel like a fool.  There are other reasons why the customer gets angry and this could be for reasons like: not enough service support; salesperson not having the right knowledge; unable to communicate clearly; trying to sell something the customer is not interested in and having a complicated process for the customer to voice his or her grievance. 

 

An angry customer is hard to manage.  Sometimes it takes a long while for the customer to cool down and even then you may have lost the customer forever as he or she might not want to do business with you anymore.  When dealing with an angry customer, the first thing you need to do is accept the fact that they are angry at your services and not you.  However, you happen to be the channel through which they can communicate their resentment.  Listen with an open mind to the customer grievance.  Do not show your disinterest as this will only aggravate your situation.  Acknowledge the fact that you understand how they feel and back this up by repeating to them what they went through.  This will reinforce their belief that you are actually listening and you are aware of the root of the problem.  One of the things customers like to see is that you are on their side.  After all that is what customer service is all about.  This might not solve the problem, but at least you might manage to calm down the customer and able to rationalize things better.  Further you managed to keep your own anger in check.

 

Bosses

Bosses get angry for the same reasons we get angry.  They do not get what they want, such as a missed dateline, incompetent behaviour of the subordinate, lack of office discipline and lack of respect.  The key to managing the boss’s anger is to first identify what is making him or her angry.  This might not be easy as you may not be in a position to go and ask him directly.  However, when bosses are angry there could be a plausible reason for this.  Perhaps you have let him down in your work and cause him extra work to do to rectify your mistake. Or your behaviour wittingly or unwittingly might have caused your boss some form of embarrassment. 

 

The best way to resolve this is to speak to your boss when he is feeling calmer.  Find a time where your boss is relatively free to talk to you and make an appointment.  Tell him what you feel about him being angry at you.  Be prepared to admit that you are wrong if you really are in the wrong.  Offer an explanation for the error you made and apologize.  The last thing your boss wants is excuses.  This way your boss will appreciate and most importantly you could work out an agreement that you are happy with. 

 

Colleagues, Friends and Family

Usually your colleagues, friends and family might feel angry because they may feel that you’ve let them down or that you have a superiority complex that makes them feel irritated by your action.  There is also the possibility that they might be jealous of you or feel that your success is unwarranted and it should have been them.  Whatever the reasons the key to handling their anger is maintaining your sense of humility.  These people might just want to be angry because they feel that they could make you angry as well.  This will give them a slight edge over you.  If you have analysed the situation well, you should be able to handle them by telling them how much they mean to you and that you wish that you could resolve the matter amicably.  If you stay calm in the sight of their anger, sooner or later they will come down to your level. 

 

Again this might be tougher than you think.  But remember, becoming angry is your choice and not anyone else’s.  If you maintain your inner balance effectively, you will find that you will have a calming effect on the people around you.

 

Article contributed by:Daniel Theyagu is a keynote speaker and seminar leader for conferences and training programmes. He runs Lateral Solutions Consultancy which designs and conducts competency-based training for organizations  E-mail:
dtheyagu@singnet.com.sg; website: www.lateralsolutionsconsult.com.

Anger Management Part 2 of 3

Keep your Temper in check!Learning to Manage Anger in your LifePart 2 of 3 

In the last segment I shared with you some causes of anger and how you can distinguish positive anger from the negative one.  There are many things that occurs which triggers anger. If you are unable to channel this psychological reaction effectively it will cause you to take actions or say things that you might regret afterwards.  Mr. Laurence J Peter said: “Speak when you are angry – and you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret.”

 

When you become angry there is a series of cascading reaction in your body that will make you feel, irritable, frustrated and miserable.  However, all these reactions occur in your mind and the thought processes that make you feel this way affects your physical actions as well.  You need to realize that as long as these feelings occur in your mind you still have the ability to take charge of it and manage it in such a way that you are motivated by the course of action you take.  It’s all about having the choice to do or feel what you want.  Dr Wayne Dyer puts it as: “Be miserable.  Or motivate yourself.  Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”  

In order to allow you to manage your anger here are some tips:

 

 

1.  Analyze the situation that makes you angry

This may sound difficult.  After all when you are feeling angry – then you are angry. Right!  However, sometimes your anger may be a by-product of a wrong response that your brain has perceived.   Analyze the situation to see what and why you feel this sense of anger.  Anger can be caused by an external event like you getting stuck in a traffic jam and being worried that you will be late for an important appointment.  It can also be caused by an internal event like someone said some things about you that are untrue.  You will feel a sense of resentment and anger against this person and might want to rectify the situation.  In both these situation if you are unable to do anything because it is beyond your control you feel furious which affects your thinking and your ability to rationalize.  This is when you should channel away your anger.  Try to resolve the situation if you can, if this is not possible then learn to move on.  Lingering on to the situation only going to make matters worst for you.

 

2.  Analyze the people you are dealing with

The people in your life can influence you in more ways than you think.  If you are always in the company of people who have the tendency to lose their temper easily, it will also affect your sense of inner balance.  There is an Arabic proverb which says: “A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot; a dog traveling with good man becomes a rational being.”  There is a tendency too that when you mingle with people of this caliber that you might end up feeling angry about things or other people that is not really your problem. 

 

You may not be able to avoid these kinds of people always, but you can be wary of them and keep in mind that you are in charge of your feelings.  Further try to associate with people who are calm and peaceful.  Observe how they are able to manage their anger and see whether you could emulate this in yourself.  John Maxwell epitomized this ability when he said: “You will acquire the vices and virtues of your closest associates.  The fragrance of their lives will pervade your life.”

 

3.  Learn to laugh at mistakes you make

Life is never an easy road.  You will face obstacles and sometimes fall.  If every time something bad happens you get angry and fall into the “Why Me!” syndrome you will face difficulties in finding peace with yourself.  The truth of the matter is that whenever you have the “Why Me!” feeling – note that if it not you who else then?  Thomas Fuller said: “None knows the weight of another’s burden”.  This statement reflects that we think that what has happened to us is unfortunate and unfair.  However there are others who might have suffered a worst consequence.  The only way to manage such a feeling of dread that leads to anger is to learn to laugh at yourself and the mistakes that you’ve made.  The more you are able to do this the more inner peace you attain and you become better at handling situations or people who make you angry.

 

4.  Develop a sense of Self regard

Self regard is your ability to visualize yourself as to who you are and what you are capable of.  If you regard yourself in low esteem then that’s what is going to happen.  On contrary if you hold yourself in high regard then you will receive the kind of respect that you seek.  Having a good sense of self regard will make you a patient, even-tempered and effective person.  You will become the man or woman who mean what you say or say what you mean.  A lack of self-regard often indicates a feeling of insecurity and a morbid fear of the unknown and uncertain.  This will prevent you from making decisions or exercising your right when there is a need to and thus create a latent anger sensation within you.  If not checked this inner feeling will give rise to toxic emotions such as hate, envy and fury that can cause dire consequences.

 

You can increase your sense of self-regard by having more trust in your abilities and capabilities. Note that the one thing that makes you who you are and what you want to be is faith.  Erich Fromm beautifully puts it: “Only a person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.” 

Article contributed by:Daniel Theyagu is a keynote speaker and seminar leader for conferences and training programmes. He runs Lateral Solutions Consultancy which designs and conducts competency-based training for organizations E-mail:
dtheyagu@singnet.com.sg; website: www.lateralsolutionsconsult.com.

Anger Management Part 1 of 3

Don’t Lose It! Learning to manage your anger in your life

Part 1 of 3

By Daniel Theyagu 

Too often in our life, we might succumb to losing our temper and just as we do so we regret our action.  Anger is a powerful emotion. It has both a positive and negative effect in our lives.  More than two thousand years ago, Greek philosopher Aristotle said: Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.  

Anger management is not about anger control.  When you control your anger you are just delaying the inevitable in that you are already angry and that feeling of anger is being suppressed temporarily.  Sooner or later it will re-surface and when it does the feeling might be magnified and become deadlier.  What you need to do is to learn how to manage your anger.  That way you will have an effective control of this powerful emotion and use it in a more beneficial ways. 

The objective of managing your anger is in your ability to channel both your emotional feelings and the physiological arousal that anger causes towards a more constructive course of action. It is important that you realize that you can’t get rid of or avoid anger. There will be people or events that occur in your life that will enrage you and there is nothing you could do to change these things.  However, if someone is able to make you angry it just goes to show that they can get into your mind and manipulate your reasoning to generate the feeling of anger.  This makes them more powerful and you will feel emotionally inapt.  Such a weakness of the mind might enrage you into taking drastic actions believing that this will compensate for your inability to deal with the feeling of anger.  

The first thing you need to understand in managing anger is that anger can be either positive or negative.  

Positive angerPositive anger can arise in several ways.  If you feel that some thing is being done unfairly or that people in your life have not got their fair share of justice, although it may not concern you directly you feel a sense of anger.  Such anger may trigger you to take action to see what you can do to alleviate the situation.  In this way you will feel energize as you have a cause to live for and this might inspire you to take positive action.  Further such a positive anger will also allow you to communicate your feeling about the issues that are bothering you and perhaps get other people fired up as well to take action.  This might help you release tension in a constructive way.  As you are motivated by this feeling of positive anger you might also be able to resolve hidden conflicts and discover new information about the situation that shed some light on what you can do to change it.   

Negative AngerIf anger is used inappropriately, it may cause other symptoms that give negative results.  When channeled ineffectively, anger will disrupt your life and your relationship with your family, friends and working colleagues.  Negative anger will also control your thought process and leaves a negative impression of the thing or person you are angry at.  This will inevitably disallows you from looking at the situation objectively and you might become biased and opinionated.  Your action or words might hurt others and cause them to lose respect for you which in turn will cause other forms of emotional problems.  This can be epitomized by the quote from Chinese philosopher Confucius who said: When anger rises, think of the consequences.   

There is a saying that healthy body gives a healthy mind.  The reverse is also true in that a healthy mind makes a healthy body. In a journal published by the American Heart Association, a study conducted showed that people who are more prone to getting angry are three times more likely to have a cardiac arrest leading to fatality as compared to people who are less anger prone.  

 Negative anger clouds your rationality and good sense of judgment.  This in turn will make you feel physically and emotionally drained.  Just like you manage the other attributes in your life, like money, time, change and work/life balance it is equally important that you need to manage your anger as well.  Greek thinker Epictetus said: If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.  

This in principle espouses the need for you to manage your anger. The choice to be angry and stay angry is one that only you should be allowed to make. If you want to resolve any matters or conflict with others you first need to be in control of your own feelings.  As the late Indira Gandhi puts it: “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”  In the next article, I will share some insights on how you could manage your anger in your life. 

 

Article contributed by:Daniel Theyagu is a keynote speaker and seminar leader for conferences and training programmes. He runs Lateral Solutions Consultancy which designs and conducts competency-based training for organizations  E-mail:
dtheyagu@singnet.com.sg; website: www.lateralsolutionsconsult.com.