How to Begin to Improve Your Anger

“Real change with anger management begins when your motivation truly comes from within.” -Anger Quote on Change and a Life Lesson on How to Begin to Change

Most people begin working on their anger because some outside influence either demands or suggests that an improvement is necessary. Unfortunately, this sets the tone for a lack of real change to take place. This anger quote on change is so important because improving anger management skills requires a level of personal responsibility that usually doesn’t come naturally to people, especially when anger outbursts are out of control.

Mandates to improve anger management skills create an uphill battle to own the problem, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Most people who come to me for help with their anger have some degree of motivation to change. The issue with intense bouts of anger is that it often involves the sense that the angry person has been wronged, misunderstood, or singled out. Very often, they believe that someone else is to blame for the anger. (For one of my most powerful posts on changing the way you blame others, click here.)

The first step for improving your anger is to own your problem. Take a step back and recognize that it’s a lose-lose situation if you blame people for your problems. Anger destroys the body from within. It alienates you and saps the love out of people.

The First Step Toward Changing Anger

Ask yourself what you have to gain by holding on to resentment toward someone or a group of people who make you angry. If you accept that the problem begins with you, then you can change. If you realize that you lose when you blame other people for your problems, you can change. If you notice that you tend to locate problems in people without looking inward, you can begin to improve your anger.

Let go of the idea that improving your anger management skills needs to happen to satisfy someone else. Whatever change you’re going to attempt to make won’t work if appeasement is the real motivation. Did you lack a role model in early childhood for controlling your anger? If so, that’s no one’s responsibility but your own (as an adult) for not owning the issue and learning new skills. Maybe you need to work on past trauma and unresolved anger based on how you were treated in the past or what you witnessed as a child. Therapy for anger can help tremendously.

Avoiding the Blame Game in Relationships

If someone is pointing out how you’ve hurt them, accept that their feelings are valid and don’t tell them how they’ve hurt you. That kind of reply destroys relationships and ruins your health. Stick with what’s been said to you. Own it. What someone says that makes you angry is still a valid statement even if you don’t agree with it.

Be careful justifying your anger based on what the world owes you. The world owes you nothing. Own that and you can start to shift your angry reactions.

This quote about anger is meant to inspire you to change the way you avoid personal responsibility. People who own the impact that their actions have on other people are able to find happiness with greater ease.

But most importantly, if you really want to improve your anger, see the problem as 100 percent your creation and you will be on your way to real change.

We all get angry and we all react in ways that we sometimes can’t control, but when we blame others for our problem, we take away our own power to make real change happen.