FREE online courses on Handling Our Own Aggression & Anger - Level IV Cognitive processes involved in reducing aggression - Increase your self-confidence

 

The more confident you are the less hurt you will be by criticism and rejection. The less hurt you are, the less angry you become. You are also less likely to be prejudiced. Self-confident people are probably self-accepting; self-accepting people are probably tolerant of others, i.e. less hateful.

 

A part of confidence is believing you can control the inborn tendencies and childhood influences that make you bad tempered. Don't be a slave to your past; you can be smarter than that. If you are prone to feel powerless, you need to build your self-efficacy by demonstrating to yourself that your temper is controllable. Plan some self-help projects and work for self-control.

 

Differentiate thoughts from deeds and the person from their action. My actions are not me; part of me, maybe, but not all of me. Your son's room, filled with month old dirt, dust, dirty clothes and decaying food, may make you furious but that is different from saying to him, "you are a filthy, lazy, defiant, no-good punk." A dirty room doesn't make him a completely despicable person, as the statement implies. Likewise, there is an important distinction between thoughts or urges and actual deeds, e.g. feeling like hitting someone differs drastically from actually doing it.