16 acting opposite to urges

This exercise can help you analyze situations in which you have acted opposite to your urge, as well as times when you’ve been unable to do this. Thinking about situations when you’ve been able to act skilfully, as well as those times when you haven’t, can help you see what’s working and what’s not, as well as what you could do next time to be more effective. Fill in the emotion you were experiencing and the urge that was attached to it. If you acted on the urge, follow the “yes” path, answering the questions to help you assess the outcome. Likewise, if you didn’t act on the urge, follow the “no” path.

Wrapping Up

In this chapter, you learned about the three different ways that we think about things—with our reasoning self, our emotional self, and our wise self. Then you read about some changes you can make in your life that will make you less vulnerable to being controlled by your emotional self. We also looked at two skills to help you act in ways that will make it more likely for you to reach your goals. Before moving on, make sure you’re really working on incorporating these changes into your life and practicing these skills in order to reduce the control your emotions have over you.