Are you concerned about how to have self-control?
We all know that one of the major keys to personal development is learning how to have self-control.
Whether you are a business owner, an employer, or just a regular individual, this is one of the major life skills you need to practice.
For you to achieve success in your business, career, and health, you need to practice self-control.
Unfortunately, a lot of people fail in achieving their goals and resolutions due to a lack of self-control.
In this article, we’ll discuss some of these tips on how to have self-control.
Read through to find out more!
How To Have Self Control
In life, you will inevitably have to deal with a wide range of problems.
Some situations might result in you feeling tensed, frustrated, and disappointed.
For you not to react in a way that escalates issues you need to be able to control your emotions and reactions.
Hence, the need to have self-control as an individual.
So, What is Self-Control?
Self-control is the ability to be in charge of oneself.
In other words, it means having control over your desire, emotions, and general behavior.
Likewise, it means the same thing as having self-discipline, self-mastery, and willpower.
Self-control is very important for achieving success in every aspect of life.
This is because with self-control you’re able to caution yourself not to do things that could harm your overall wellbeing.
Likewise, you’re able to push yourself to do things that are beneficial to you and necessary in helping you achieve your aim in life.
Having said all this, here’s our definition of self-control.
However, before we talk about how to have self-control let’s take a look at the importance of having self-control.
Importance Of Controlling Yourself
Being able to self regulate, control your emotions and reactions to situations is a skill a lot of people aspire to have.
Moreover, exercising self-control is very beneficial.
We have listed some of the benefits of having self-control below.
- Improves your health and fitness due to the fact that you are less stressed when you exercise self-control.
- Self-control increases your decision-making capacity- Your ability to control your emotions enables you to process things calmly and rationally. This increases your chances of making the right decisions.
- Gives you control over your emotions – Having self-control means that you can be counted on not to react emotionally or irrationally. You are able to give the right emotional response to a situation.
- Helps to build your self-confidence. – Exercising self-control helps you build your self-control and discipline muscles. This invariably increases your self-confidence.
- It helps to promote good leadership and followership – Good leaders and followers have self-control. Leaders with self-control can be trusted to act independently of themselves and make the right decisions on behalf of their followers. Followers with self-control can be trusted to do what needs to be done for the greater good independent of themselves.
Having listed all these benefits, now we can outline how to have self-control.
Tips On How To Have Self-Control
Studies indicate that developing self-control is very important for achieving set goals and our overall wellbeing.
Simply put, self-control will also help us become better in the way we eat, exercise, drink, spend, and work on your goals.
It will also have a positive effect on your relationships with the people around you.
Hence, here are some simple but effective tips on how to have self-control.
Bear In Mind The Consequences Of Your Actions
One of the major tips for having self-control is to always remember the consequences of your actions.
There are a number of consequences associated with low self-control.
For instance, sometimes, the inability to recognize consequences makes people engage in criminal activities which they ended up regretting.
Every choice you make today has its own consequences tomorrow.
You cannot escape the consequences of the choices you make, especially bad choices.
Every bad decision has its own inevitable consequence.
So also is it for every good decision you make.
A decision is something you choose to do.
Basically, when you lack self-control, you might be caught up in the moment and not always consider the results of your decisions.
Due to this, you end up making a bad decision which you will regret.
For instance, say as a business owner or entrepreneur you lose control of your emotions and behaved badly to a client.
This bad decision you made without considering the consequences will not only affect your business presently but also in the future.
This is because the customer might lose interest in doing business with you again and might tell other people about your bad behavior.
Hence, affecting the profitability of your business.
Given this, considering the consequences of your actions before acting will help you to have more self-control.
Remove Distraction And Temptations
Distraction and temptation are twin factors that can threaten your self-control.
According to the oxford dictionary, temptations are the desire to do something, especially when it is wrong or unwise.
Likewise, distractions are the things or event that prevents you from concentrating on important things
So, your ability to beat both, notwithstanding how colorful they are determines your level of self-control.
Some things that could serve as distractions or temptations include;
- eating chocolate bars instead of vegetables.
- Sitting on a couch instead of exercising.
- Watching TV or playing games or checking your social media instead of completing a pending project.
If you want to improve your self-control, then you have to learn to do away with the things that will tempt or distract you.
For example, you can learn to live healthily or eat better by putting junk food out of sight.
Better still, don’t bring them to your home.
When you are supposed to finish up a project don’t go near your social media account.
Furthermore, if you work from home and you are easily distracted by TV or other factors, go somewhere else to focus.
Being able to remove distraction and temptation helps you to stay focused on achieving your desired goals.
As a business owner, when you have an important task at hand and you neglect it to do something else or irrelevant, then you lack self-control.
It means that you’re not able to push yourself to do the needful at the appropriate time.
Thus, learn to do away with distraction and temptations that stand in the way of achieving your goals.
Hence, helping you build your self-control.
Learn How To Manage Stress
Another way to build or have self-control is knowing how to manage your stress.
Whether you are a business owner, leader, super mum, student, or whatsoever, if you lack the ability to manage stress, it will definitely have an effect on your self-control.
Stress is a state of emotional or physical tension and uneasiness.
It occurs as a result of events that make you feel angry, frustrated, or nervous.
There are a lot of things that could put someone under stress and make you lose control of your emotions.
Some of them include;
- Exhausting work schedule
- Financial problems
- Bad Marriage, divorce, etc.
- Loss of job
- Family problems
- Death of love ones
- among other things
There are ways to better manage your stress levels.
This is so that you can always be in the right frame of mind and be in charge of your emotions at all times.
A few of the ways to manage stress are listed below;
- Acknowledge your emotion – Identify the source of your stress
- Eat healthily
- Exercise regularly
- Be mindful
- Take a break
- Get some rest
- Keep a positive attitude
- Don’t stay idle or lonely
- Make time to go out – have fun
- Practice some relaxation techniques such as YOGA.
- Say positive things to yourself
- Take a walk
- Take deep breaths
- Visit a Psychologist
- Seek medical attention
These points above would help you understand how to manage stress and keep your emotions in check.
Consequently, helping you to have self-control.
Be Specific About Your Goals
When you set complex goals, you’ll easily feel overwhelmed, confused, and distracted.
Thereby, making it difficult for you to stay disciplined and control your actions towards achieving your goals.
On the other hand, when you’re specific about what you want, it makes it easy for you to stay focused on doing the needful to get what you want.
For instance, let us consider a business owner for example.
As a business owner, when you are specific about what you want in your business, all your actions and decisions you make are channeled towards achieving it.
Notwithstanding the situation you find yourself, you will be determined towards achieving your set goals.
Given this, you should form the habit of setting specific goals.
This way you’ll be able to stay focused and prioritize your actions or decisions.
The more specific your goals are, the more disciplined you become and the more likely you are to disengage from whatever that will hinder the realization of your goal.
This invariably helps you exercise self-control.
Listed below are ways you can set a specific goal to improve your willpower
- Firstly, you should have a journal or book where you can itemize what you want.
- Secondly, you can list them and get it pinned to your notice board either in your room or office.
- Thirdly, you should know and include the following in your list; when, how, and why.
This will help you build your focus on the goals you want to achieve because you already know why, when, and how it should be done.
Consequently, helping you have the self-control to work on your set goals.
Stop Acting On Impulse
This is also an effective way to have self-control.
Acting on impulse means acting in the heat of the moment.
It means reacting to your emotions and making decisions without giving it careful thoughts.
Impulsive thought has caused more damage to businesses, professional, and personal relationships.
Worst still, it has lead to people making many wrong decisions which they later regretted.
Whether in business, professional, and personal life, the ability to control your impulsive thoughts is very necessary.
This is because impulsive thought will make you take a decision without considering the consequences.
Most businesses have lost clients due to this factor.
Employers have lost valuable and efficient employees as a result of their impulsive thought.
The ability for you to manage your impulsive thoughts will help you have more self-control over your emotions and reactions.
For example, are you struggling with a lack of self-control when it comes to your spending habit?
Do you constantly buy things on impulse without careful planning?
One of the ways you can manage that is by placing a minimum of about 12 hours pause on your purchases.
This way, you will have the time to evaluate if you really need to make the purchase.
By doing this, you will be able to prioritize your needs.
Manage Your Temperament
Another area or way you can improve your self-control is by managing your temperament.
The inability to manage temperaments has also led many people into regrettable situations.
A bad temper will make you act irrationally where you’re supposed to remain calm.
Thus escalating things and putting you in a bad situation.
There are different temperaments for different personalities such as the sanguines, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.
Each has its strength and weaknesses.
For example, as a business leader who is choleric (short-tempered, fast, and irritable), you’re prone to being easily offended.
Due to this, there are high chances of you losing control of your emotions voluntarily or involuntarily if you don’t work on managing your temperament.
Hence, you need to be able to recognize your weakness and ensure you work towards controlling it.
By learning to manage your temperaments, you’re enhancing you’ll gain more self-control of your emotions and how you react to situations.
Here are a few helpful tips on how to better manage your temperament and have more self-control.
- Study your temperament
- List out what makes you tick
- Always consider the consequence of each action before activating it
- Check your progress
- Talk about your feelings with an expert or someone else
- Lightening up to diffuse tension
- Meditate or practice deep breathing
- Listen to music
Develop Self-Awareness
This is a very crucial step toward achieving self-control.
Self-control is all about being able to control your emotions and behavior.
Self-awareness is one of the key components of emotional intelligence.
As an emotionally intelligent individual, you understand your emotions and are able to control how you react to most situations.
What better way is there to have more control of your emotions than understand your emotions.
Hence, the need for you to develop self-awareness.
Self-awareness entails you understanding your personality, your emotions, and knowing what makes you tick as an individual.
It’s about identifying what gets under your skin.
For example, are you able to think clearly under pressure?
Are you always quick to jump to conclusions on certain situations?
Are you usually patient in annoying situations?
By knowing your behavioral patterns and how you react to different situations, you can better manage yourself and your impulses.
Thereby, helping you have self-control.
Here are a few tips on how to develop self-awareness.
- Question yourself objectively and honestly.
- Practice keeping a journal- This would help you keep track of your emotions, thoughts, and habits generally.
- Practice daily self-reflection- Take some time out daily to do some inner soul searching
- Do some meditation and other mindfulness exercises- This would help you attain mental clarity and self-awareness.
- Seek feedback on behavior from close friends, family members, and/or colleagues.
Conclusion On How To Have Self-Control
Having self-control has a lot to do with our personal development.
Psychologists define self-control as the ability to control behaviors in order to avoid temptation and as well to achieve your goals.
So for this reason, learning how to have self-control cannot be overemphasized.
Use these tips as a guide on how to have self-control.
Being able to control yourself and emotions will definitely put you in a suitable position to make meaningful decisions and become a better person overall.
You can also check out other articles linked to this post: they are also helpful as this one.
Here’s to your success and a better you.
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