How to Use Anger to Initiate Positive, Personal Change

If you find it is difficult sticking to your personal goals, you aren’t alone. Most people know they should be doing things they don’t. Humans are masters at rationalizing reasons for ignoring best laid plans.

You can counteract the “excuse factory” in your brain with emotional awareness. When you notice what you are feeling when you have a choice to make, you can then consciously shift to feel a more powerful emotion before deciding what to do.

When faced with the choice to go exercise, refuse unhealthy food, spend time writing, schedule a difficult conversation, make a scary phone call, or whatever task you tend to avoid, ask yourself what you are feeling. Check in with your body. Do you sense anxiety, boredom, fear, embarrassment, or worry? You might decide to push through the discomfort and do what you need to do. If you still struggle taking the next step, you need to shift to a stronger emotion to help you make the move.

In other words, you must want the change badly enough to overcome the anxiety, boredom, fear, embarrassment, and worry that stops your goal achievement.

The intensity of your desire to change, whether based on a positive or negative emotion, correlates to the likelihood you will complete the process. Both desire and anger can motivate you to meet your goals.

USING ANGER TO MOTIVATE CHANGE

Anger is one of the strongest motivators of change. An intense negative reaction to your circumstances revs up your internal motor more powerfully than a lightly held wish. Through extensive research, Jennifer Lerner and her team at the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory found that anger encourages people to believe they can control their future and motivates them to take risks.

Yes, the decisions you make when angry can also be wrong. Lerner and her team found anger often leads to simplistic thoughts and actions that ignore risks. When you make plans that could have a negative impact on yourself or others, it is better to calculate risks in a more neutral state of mind, or in the company of people who can help you explore all possibilities.

Just be careful you don't use risk as an excuse to derail the decisions you made when thinking clearly. This is where you can use anger to your benefit.

Focus your anger on what you strongly desire to change within yourself. It is not your flaky boss, your overwhelming responsibilities, or other people's feelings that keep you from taking care of yourself. Be angry that you aren’t using your power to change your circumstances.

I often ask my clients, "Are you finally mad enough at yourself for allowing this to happen again?" The question focuses the anger on their own avoidance mechanisms, disarming the blocks they had for changing.

When you adamantly say, "Enough is enough," you can use your anger to take your feet out of the mud. Great changes have been made when outrage turned into organization and activism. You can use this same energy for yourself. There is a lot of power in the words, “Oh yeah, I’ll show you!” Being fed up with your present circumstances will help you initiate the positive shifts you need to change your life.

Ask yourself how badly you want what you deserve:

* What do I want to happen? Why do I know this is possible? Do I want this badly enough to fight for it?

* What have I had enough of and needs to end today so I can get what I deserve?

SHIFT YOUR ANGER TO PASSION

Once you commit to your goals, you should shift your focus away from what is missing in your life (evoking anger) to what you want to passionately and positively create (inspiring passion). Determine what you want to end and then make the shift from a negative to a positive expression of what you deeply desire to have for yourself.

Sustained anger can be destructive physically in your body and externally in the world around you. You can drive people away with your anger, people who could help you achieve your goals.

Adamantly wanting something to end is a good way to kick start the transformation process. Once you are off and running, you need a positive obsession to sustain your efforts.

Ask yourself what makes your desire so important:

* What will my dream give me when it finally comes true?

* How can I shift my frustration to what I dearly want to create?

Put your emotions in service of what you desire. Get angry! Then employ positive, powerful emotions to help you survive your journey.

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Article adapted from Wander Woman: How High-Achieving Women Find Contentment and Direction (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler: 2010) pp. 140-142.