This is my prepared speech for project 4 at KMS Toastmaster Club.
Hello Fellow Toastmasters and guests. Today, I will talk about how to control yourself when you are angry. To deal with anger, you should understand what is so bad about it. And I will share with you two effective tips to calm you down. Only 2. No big deal. And those two will melt you down in most of the cases. Let’s start.
The question is: Is anger dangerous? Certainly, yes, it is dangerous. Now, let us see how dangerous it is. Our emotion usually gets hot whenever there is anything not as our expectation. It can be just… anything. Your boss asks you do things that you don’t want to do. You get angry. Your girl friend doesn’t agree the coffee place for the next gathering. You get angry. Your co-worker is late for a meeting with you. You get angry. Whether you like it or not … anger is part of our emotion. And we can’t 100% escape from it. The problem is whenever you lose your temper, it will have critically bad impacts to you.
It will damage your health. Being angry makes your heart jump faster. If it you don’t control it well, it won’t stop there. It will continue lasting for hours or even for days and months in your mind. When that happens, your body automatically maintain a high level of tense and it will start damaging the whole system: heart, stomach, blood pressure, liver, … Eventually, it will wear you down one way or the other. So yes, it is dangerous for your health.
Secondly, when you get angry, you often make bad decisions. Why? Because when you lose your temper, you tend to respond fast. Although, you don’t have enough time to completely understand the situation. You will just respond. Decision making is often not necessary to be fast, but it needs to be the right one. Shouting out bad things is the other result of being angry. That will badly hurt your relationship with other people.
So, you know that you can’t avoid anger. You also know that anger is bad. Don’t you agree? Then, what can you do about it?
I’m giving you two tips I learned from the book called Emotional Intelligence 2.0.
Here is the first one. Breath and count. Whenever you feel your body annoyed by an event… stop everything. Deep breathing and counting 1 as exhaling. 1, 2, 3,…till 10. This is to stop yourself. This is to prevent yourself from fast reacting / fast responding. You now know you’re getting hot. You now have more time to think and have a clear view of what has happened. Breath… and count. Isn’t it easy?
However, if you are in a meeting, how can you count? I do have the second tip is for that situation. Whenever you go to a meeting, bring with you a glass of water or a cup of coffee. And if your boss or your co-worker start giving you hard time, don’t respond right away. Instead, take a sip of water or coffee. Everyone will have to wait, till you finish your sip of water or coffee, before you have to say anything. That will give you more time to think clearly before saying anything. That will also slow down your thought and help you calm down, if you are angry. Bring your water or coffee with you.
In conclusion, to manage your anger, first you need to know that anger is very dangerous. Anger is the top result to damage your health as well as to hurt relationship. To control your anger, breath and count, 1, 2, 3, … Or bring a glass of water with you and use it. Practice those tips and I hope it will help you deal with your anger effectively. That is the end of my talk today. Thanks for listening.
Image credit:
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