Self Regulation Strategies
Self Regulation Strategies
● Change your talk from I always or I never into just this time or sometimes. Your actions
are unique to the situation in front of you, no matter how often you think you mess up.
When you start treating each situation as a separate event and stop generalizing every
mistake, you stop making your problems bigger than they really are.
● Replace judgmental statements like I’m an idiot with factual ones like I made a mistake.
Judgments that attach a permanent label to you leave no room for improvement. Be
objective, and focus on what you can change.
● Accept responsibility for your actions and no one else’s. Stop thinking it’s all my fault or
it’s all their fault.
Strategy 2. Focus your attention on your freedoms rather than your limitations.
Often you can’t change a situation or even the parties involved, but that doesn’t mean it’s
time for you to give up. Take a look at how you are reacting to the situation itself. Focusing
on restrictions is not only demoralizing – it helps negative feelings surface that confirm your
sense of helplessness. Focus on remaining flexible and open-minded in spite of the
situation.
Strategy 3. Learn a valuable lesson from everyone you encounter.
You can do this with pretty much any situation that happens in your life even when you’re
being criticized or someone disagrees with you strongly or questions your motives. There’s
something that you can gain from practically every encounter. Maybe it’s patience with
irritating people. The next time you find yourself caught off-guard and on the defensive,
embrace the opportunity to learn something.
Strategy 4. Stop and think. You may not be able to stop from feeling an emotion, but you
can manage your response to it. Pause before you speak or write back to someone in a
moment of anger or frustration. In the face of criticism, warranted or not, ask yourself how
you might learn from the situation.
Strategy 5. Train your attention. Life is full of many distractions, but learning to focus on a
goal or a purpose leads to calmness and clarity of mind. You can’t stop negative experiences
or life stressors from occurring, but you can choose how you react to them. Daily journaling
is one excellent way to process your frustrations and put things into perspective.
Strategy 6. Talk less and listen more. The more you understand the perspective of others,
the more empathetic you’re likelier to be. You don’t have to agree with the perspective of
others, but your effort to see how they see things will result in deeper and better
relationships.