The Secret to Self-Control
The ability to control one's response is vital in pursuing self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the recognition and belief in one's ability to manage individual behavior, response, and motivation and is a complex yet active self-analysis that enables conscious mastery of behavior and emotional responses, which supports how one navigates within and responds to an environment.
Self-control, by definition, is the ability to manage emotional and physical responses, which is the foundation of achieving self-efficacy. Thus, enabling self-control is the practice of restraint to deter any inclination for any irrational and or impulsive response. Fundamentally, lack of self-control is a battle between ego and emotion, where ego drives one's desires and needs without consideration of consequences via a display of uncontrolled or impulsive emotions. With consideration of this definition, it is important to note again that self-control requires an active effort. Luckily, I have found a way to achieve self-control quickly and manage it longer-term, thus, I will share what should be recognized and adjusted to not only establish but also feel comfortable operating in self-control, which prompts willingness to maintain self-control long-term.
Here's the secret to self-control!
As self-control has to first be understood in terms of what needs to be controlled, when this is understood, I recognized that self-control is essentially a battle between ego, will, and emotion. Therefore, the secret to achieving self-control rests in the ability to remain self-assured and confident!
It's the confidence that checks the ego and provides an ability to manage emotional responses. And self-assurance, while often assumed to be the same as confidence, is embedded in the capacity to remain true in one's decision granted knowing you've properly analyzed the choice and trust yourself enough to stand in that decision, confidently.
WHY SELF-CONFIDENCE?
Self-confidence is more than elevated self-esteem, it's the peace in knowing you are doing you're best, while recognizing you are not perfect but are comfortable, where you are in the lessons you have learned, all while willing to adjust and evolve as needed. There's an element of kindness and forgiveness in self-confidence that allows us to stand on and operate within one's beliefs knowing our intention is good. And when someone questions or insults our decisions we don't stay stuck in that negativity. We can move on and be sure we've done right without being negatively impacted.
Self-confidence is so critical because it supports the ability to stand in the decisions made. Now, self-confidence can be taken in a negative context, so I just want to clarify, for this blog post, we are speaking in positive terms only, where self-confidence is regarded as one's ability to be sure of who they are, what one wants, and not heavily influenced or impacted by the opinions of others. It's the certainty that even in making tough decisions, assures us that we've made the right decision.
And even if it doesn't end in the desired result, the lesson is recognized, appreciated, and implemented moving forward.
WHY EGO-CHECKING?
We tend to use the term ego or egotistical with very little understanding of the true strength (gravity) that our perception (self-perception) contributes to how we operate within the ego. For instance, an individual that is more concerned with how they are perceived by others, their ego is driven by pride. And while pride can be positive, in terms of ego, pride fuels feelings of inadequacy. Therefore we must understand that to prevent ourselves from feeling less than others, when operating in ego we are prompted to lie, act out of character, and cultivate a space where we feel adequate, by any means necessary. Thus, typically yielding negative actions or non-healthy behaviors we believe enable others to perceive us positively or favorably
Ego, in this example, alters our perception of reality and fuels a need to be accepted at any cost.
Individuals with the greatest capacity to check their ego are self-confident and self-assured, as there is little to no reliance on the need to please and be pleasing to others. These individuals understand when they are acting out of character or prone to responding in an unhealthy way and self-assess to reframe from doing so. Essentially, they disconnect from any need to go along to get along, are ok with standing confidently in what they believe, and find comfort in knowing that they may not be received well by those they may be in the presence of.
When you check your ego, you can withstand verbal offense and abuse without emotional response, because you don't need to prove a point or feel justified in your decisions by others through providing them a reaction.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Being able to establish and maintain self-control is truly embedded in one's ability to be self-assured and self-confident in their decisions and choices so that there are no maladaptive (non-healthy) triggered responses to not meeting the expectations of others. And while the point of this blog was to share the secret to self-control, I will give you another secret to ego-checking. Essentially the ability to check the ego simply rests in releasing expectations. And those can be individual expectations or the expectations of others, where the expectation is "how you thought the situation should have gone" or any assumptions of anticipated response.
This is significant because until we achieve self-awareness, we tend to operate in the assumptions of how others perceive us, and we respond in anticipation of assumptions. Therefore, when that individual does not respond as we "anticipate", we find ourselves caught in the idea of what should have been, also known as the "unexpected", which can cause us to lose control over our response, because the situation doesn't go as planned or the response is not anticipated. Thus, the fundamental issue with expectations is that we tend to predetermine a response, which does not give us room to respond to adverse reactions (non-anticipated) in a healthy way. That's why it is also important to remember that when you are self-confident you can rest in the peace of knowing you are doing your best while recognizing you are not perfect and will need to adjust and evolve and express kindness and forgiveness to yourself and others.
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