The Power of Self-Regulation

Books Referenced

High Performance Habits - Brendon Burchard

The Happiness Advantage - Shawn Achor

The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt

Thinking Fast and Slow - Daneil Kahneman

Man’s Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl

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One of the biggest reasons why people fail at achieving their goals is because of a lack of self-regulation.

Distractions, overreactions, outbursts, avoidance… all are symptoms of a lack of self-control. Self-control is dependent on self-regulation.

To achieve more, perform better, and positively influence others, we need self-regulation.

Let me take a brief tangent.

You may have heard a saying, “we teach what we need to learn most.”

And boy this is a topic I needed when I was younger.

And now even.

If you have been subscribed for a while, you may have noticed that many of these articles have direct or indirect references to emotions.

Why is that?

2 reasons:

First, we are emotional animals, so learning about emotions is impactful.

Second, I am emotional, and I love learning about topics that level up my own performance… then I can share what I learn with you.

This topic of “self-regulation” is well planted within the realms of emotion and performance.

A well [self] regulated individual is a master of their thoughts and actions.

A dysregulated individual is a slave to their emotional reactions.

If you are like me, then you have experienced the remorse of an emotional outburst, or the regret of avoiding something due to fear.

Self-regulation is a skill we can learn and build to better control our actions regardless of how we feel.

This leads to higher performance.

When we fail to develop self-regulation, we become like adult toddlers. Tantrums, irrational fears, and other side effects will limit our performance.

Join me on this ride. Let’s talk about self-regulation.

Self-Regulation

Let’s talk definitions here.

Self-regulation is the ability to manage your thoughts, feelings, and actions in a way that aligns with your goals.

It is your ability to think and act with intention in spite of your emotions.

This assumes you have goals to regulate yourself towards.

If we have no goals, then there is no reason to self-regulate. If there is no desired outcome there is no aligned action, so any action is appropriate.

When we have goals, we aspire to achieve things we have not achieved before (I know… sounds obvious).

To achieve that thing, we must change.

We must become a different person, do different things, and navigate the challenges that come alongside.

Change can be hard.

Change brings along emotions that can block our growth.

These emotions include (but are not limited to) fear, disappointment, and anger.

Why does this happen?

Our minds often see change as a threat.

Change creates uncertainty, and uncertainty is risky… it can be dangerous.

Risk triggers fear. Our emotions kick in to keep us safe within our comfort zone.

And it is not just fear. Our minds may react with anger.

If we feel fear, perceive a physical threat, or recognize a social threat, our minds may trigger feelings of anger.

Anger makes us feel strong and in control. It helps us take action to defend ourselves in spite of the fear.

But…

Acting angry is a sure way to trigger a stress response in another person, so it rarely helps people build bonds or solutions.

When fear or anger is present, our stress response is fired up. While some pressure is good for performance, a hyperactive stress response and the accompanying emotions is NOT good for performance.

In a self-regulated state, we can acknowledge our feelings choose our actions accordingly.

For self-regulated humans, emotions become feedback and signals… not the end-all-be-all.

Cravings are no longer a feeling that we MUST eat. They are a signal that we need energy, or comfort, or stress relief.

Disappointment is no longer a feeling that we have no control. It is a signal that our expectations are not being met.

Let’s not forget about positive emotions too. When we feel ecstatic, our judgment skills are inhibited because we tend to see everything as positive. This can make us prone to taking bigger risks when we may not be ready.

Winning a big competition does not mean we should party hard to celebrate.

Getting a big promotion does not mean we should blow our bonus on a new car.

I could go on and on… But you get the point. Strong emotions can kick us off the path of our ideal behavior.

Let’s jump into how we build the skill of self-regulation.

To be effective we need to assess the 3 facets of self-regulation:

• Cognitive
• Emotional
• Behavioral

These three are not hierarchical as each one impacts the others. But we will start with cognitive regulation because it is simple to explain the downstream impact of doing it well.

Cognitive Regulation

Have you ever tried controlling your thinking?

It is difficult.

Try meditating and thinking of nothing.

You can probably achieve this for about 10 to 60 seconds. Inevitably, your mind will start creating ideas and thoughts.

The mind is a thought creation machine. We can quiet the mind through focusing on something (like our breathing), but again, the mental chatter never goes away.

This is one reason why focus can be a challenge.

Our brains are always scanning the environment looking for threats and opportunities. And always generating thoughts. It never turns off.

Our subconscious is aware of our surroundings and on alert for anything we should pay attention to.

With all the background noise of life going on, how can we regulate our minds?

We can do so by stepping out of unconscious action and into conscious awareness.

The best way I have found to do this is through intention.

Being intentional is an overlooked performance enhancer.

When we operate without intention, we are behaving in a habitual and reactive (unconscious) manner.

Have you ever made a long car drive only to realize that you have been thinking of something else and are not paying attention to the road?

Well, your subconscious was paying attention while your conscious mind was thinking about something else.

If you want better focus, positivity, and mental energy, then setting an intention is a practice that works.

Here is how I like to do it.

Morning Intention

Each morning, I take a moment to pause and consider the 3 most important things I need to do that day.

And I get specific.

• Reach out to 10 people
• Coach 3 clients
• Exercise for 45 minutes

Each day may have a different list of top 3 items, but that does not matter.

What matters is that I am setting an intention to complete these things. It is like planting a seed and then immediately giving it sunshine and water.

After setting this intention, I start getting after it.

This helps me avoid distractions of social media and other things my brain does not actually need.

Transitional Intention

I learned this from Brendon Burchard in his book High Performance Habits.

While transitioning from one task, event, or conversation to another, I take a minute or two and clear my mind.

I release the thoughts of my previous task, noting what incomplete work I need to wrap up, and then set an intention for how I want to show up for the next task.

If I am going from a work call to family time, I do not want to bring my work thoughts into my family time. This creates a lack of presence that impacts how I interact with my family.

I may set an intention to be patient, engaged, and fun.

Just these 2 minutes of intention setting have done wonders on improving how I show up to conversations and tasks.

Positive Intention

Our brains are very good at defaulting to negative thoughts. Thoughts of fear, worry, and pain are helpful at getting us to avoid risk, and therefore be safe.

But they do not help us recognize opportunity, connect, or inspire.

We need positivity for that.

To create positive intention, I leverage the transitional intention above and add in a thought about positivity.

For example, I may be feeling stressed about a decision. Before moving into making a decision, I will ask myself, “What is the opportunity here?”

Or I might ask, “How will I grow from this?”

Both of these questions put my mind into a positive frame.

And as Shawn Achor states in his book The Happiness Advantage, a positive brain outperforms a negative or neutral brain.

Emotional Regulation

Emotions are going to happen whether you want them too or not.

Feelings are part of the human condition. As Jonathan Haidt says in his book The Righteous Mind, humans are emotional animals first, then rational. Our emotions are equivalent to an elephant, and our rationality is a little rider sitting on top of that elephant.

Daneil Kahneman talks about this in depth in his amazing book Thinking Fast and Slow.

There are two ways to regulate our emotional reactions.

The first way is to create space.

Viktor Frankl talks about this in Man’s Search for Meaning. Between an event and our reactions, there is a space where we can choose how we react.

Most of the time, we tend to react with zero space.

Something happens, we get emotionally triggered, and we react with those emotions in play.

It is possible to act in a regulated way despite our emotions.

Our feelings and our actions are two separate things.

If you feel triggered and angry, do not immediately react.

Create space.

Pause.

Notice your emotions. Label them. Then choose a way to respond.

To borrow Jonathan Haidt’s language, acknowledge the elephant, but take the frame of the rider and choose your actions in alignment with your goals.

Is anger the best emotion to display?

Can you feel angry but act calm?

That answer is yes. Yes, you can.

The practice of creating space takes time and effort. This is a skill we can get good at with practice.

When we feel a strong emotion, our default behavior does not have to be to react.

Instead, it can be a cue to pause, assess, and choose our behavior.

There is one other method which can help us naturally create space between our emotional reactions and our chosen behavior, and I call it emotional framing.

I have written about this previously and you can read more about it here.

In essence, you create an emotional intention before going into a situation.

It is a lot like the practice of setting an intention for cognitive regulation. We can set an intention for the emotions we want to navigate.

Before going into a difficult conversation, set the intention to be patient. Or you might set the intention to be a good listener, or stoic, or some other positive frame.

When we set an intention, we prime our brains to think and act in alignment with who we want to be.

Priming has been shown in many research studies to influence behavior. In the research, priming is often done without intention, but we can use intentional priming to our advantage.

I will reiterate a point I have made in other articles. Emotions are meant to drive us to action without the need for rational thinking.

This can help us stay safe or pursue opportunities without making the cognitive decision to do so, but it comes with the risk of demonstrating behavior misaligned without ideal self.

Create a positive emotional frame. Set the intention for how you want to show up. Choose how you want to react should things go sideways.

When we do this well, we can better move into the next step: behavioral regulation.

Behavioral Regulation

Behavior regulation is all about choosing our actions.

It can be divided into two general categories: task regulation and trait regulation.

Task Regulation

As we move through our day, we will be tempted to multitask, shift our focus, and get distracted. With behavior regulation, we can better avoid distractions to maintain our focus and execute tasks aligned with our ideal self.

To do this, we need clarity.

What do you want? What are your goals? What are you striving toward?

If this is too difficult to answer, start by asking what you don’t want. What life are you trying to avoid? What outcomes are you working to NOT see?

When we have clarity on our goals, we can better prioritize what we should and should not be doing with our time.

Once you have clarity on what you want (or don’t want), put your tasks in your calendar.

This is age old advice that works, but only if you put it into practice.

Some of the best advice I have gotten is about prioritizing the 3 most important things you need to do each day, and then do them first!

Personally, I like to prepare each morning with a list of items I must do.

This helps clarify what needs to be done and what is nonessential to complete.

Will I get up and scroll Instagram? Or will I read two chapters and then write a summary?

Will I prepare for upcoming coaching conversations, or will I film an instructional video for a client?

Will I exercise or use the time to reach out to prospective clients?

There is an endless list of things that we can do to get us to our goals, and there is an infinitely longer list of this that won’t.

At the end of the day, we must have clarity on what will move the needle toward our goals, and we must prioritize accordingly.

Trait Regulation

Not only is it important on what we do but also how we do it.

Do you need to be more disciplined? Focused? Relaxed?

What are the traits you need to demonstrate to be in alignment with your ideal self?

To influence trait-based regulation, I like using incantations.

These are like mantras.

Remind yourself of who you want to be by repeating affirmations to yourself.

I am disciplined.

I am focused.

I am patient.

These incantations are just like intentions. They are a way of priming your thinking to behave in ways aligned with your ideal self.

They may feel awkward at first. But try stating a few positive incantations to yourself twice a day and watch the magic happen.

Actually… there is no magic… priming is science. And it works.

The Wrap Up

Our emotions and reactions will either set us on path to our ideal self or will derail us and lead us to the future we don’t want.

Self-regulation is a skill we can develop if we are intentional about practicing it.

To master self-regulation, start with cognitive regulation and set intentions for mind.

Regulate your emotions by creating space and creating a positive emotional frame.

Then regulate your behavior by aligning your actions with the tasks that will move the needle to your goals.

And consider two or three incantations you can repeat to prime your brain for the traits you want to demonstrate.

Keep crushing it, my friends.

Thanks for reading.

Clark