It is easy to feel powerless in your day-to-day. Whether you’re listening to the news or someone at work or at home has upset you, it can seem like you have little control. The feelings those episodes often stir up can linger and leave you stuck being angry, sad and frustrated.
In those moments, psychotherapist and author Steven Stosny recommends turning to what he calls his three laws of personal power.
Taking these steps, he says, can help you “cheer yourself up when you’re down and calm yourself down when you’re upset.”
The 3 laws of personal power1. Focus on what you can improve
While you might not be able to change the situation you’re in, you can focus on what’s within your power, like changing your perspective.
“If [someone is] being very rude to me, I can’t improve that,” Stosny says.
But you can look at the situation objectively, observe that the other person is upset, consider if you did something to upset them and try to have some compassion.
That will immediately take you out of your own frustration.
“If you can’t improve the situation,” he says, “you have to improve your emotional reaction to it.”
2. Think about the future, not the past
Sometimes a negative emotion can send you back to every other time you’ve felt that way, and that will just leave you feeling miserable. “You can’t do anything about the past,” Stosny says.
Instead, focus on the future.
Say you got angry and said something unkind to your partner. As you’re dealing with the resulting swell of emotions, think “I really screwed up,” he says. “The next time, I’m going to be a lot more vigilant.”
Then consider what led to you saying what you said, including both internal and external factors, and make a plan to change how you react next time.
Taking action and rewiring your future response can really help regulate those emotions. “You can feel your confidence going up as you just look to the future,” Stosny says.
3. Widen your lens
If you’re getting laser-focused on a negative feeling, Stosny suggests taking a step back and considering what you can do right now.
Let’s say you made an impulse purchase that you can’t really afford. Instead of stewing in shame or self-loathing, you can say to yourself, “well, what’s going to make this better? I can try to return it,” Stosny says.
You can also resolve to be more aware of your spending and work at living within your means. That is more empowering than sitting in that anger and frustration.
Ultimately, power is acting in “your long-term best interest,” Stosny says. “You’re hardly ever going to do that with a negative emotion.”
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