Taking Things Personally

Managing your anger is all about managing your thoughts. Your thoughts will determine how you respond.

Strategies like cognitive behavioral therapy can teach people healthier thought patterns.

It helps a user read a set of blood-boiling scenarios and rates how likely they are to have each of six possible reactions. It enables you to recognize unhelpful thoughts that cause a knee-jerk reaction. For example: When you are driving through a residential area, and someone backs their car out of a driveway and nearly hits you. There are six possible reactions:

• "They did that just so I'd have to stop." This is a fallacy known as misattributing causation - you don't know the other person's intentions.
• "They almost totaled my car." It catastrophizes a scary situation into utter destruction.
• "Nobody knows how to drive anymore" overgeneralizes a specific situation into a universal truth.
• "I was here first. They shouldn't have gotten in my way." Here you make an unreasonable demand that somehow other people should know where you're going.
• "That dumb jerk!" is inflammatory labeling that dehumanizes and insults the other person.
• "He must not have seen me" is adaptive and more likely to calm you down.

Being late is a chronic habit and shifting towards punctuality can take weeks or even months, as the person has to break down a pattern (of being late) and build a new one.

One has to train their mind to the new normal of being on time by thinking and planning ahead, proactively.

The amount of energy it takes to rush into things and trying to reach frantically on time, and then to repent afterwards, can be harnessed and channelled into working towards being punctual.

Being accountable towards one’s tardiness, when the consequences like the loss of a job, or a major client, can spur a person into breaking the internal denial about their lateness being something tolerable by others.

• Once there is clarity, one needs to enhance the bosses perception about being competent, reliable and trustworthy. Playing on one’s strengths while correcting the weak areas is a good initial strategy.
• Have frequent check-ins to ensure there is no derailment, or to make any course correction.
• Provide a plan of action that is tangible, measurable and showcases your progress in a visual, clear way.
• Provide daily or weekly updates about your activities and try to appear bold and confident.

• Do not protest if you still get lower-quality work, as it may lead to the boss believing that you should not be given higher-quality work, just like before.
• Be transparent and forthcoming and the work with your boss rather than providing them with bad news at the last moment.
• Do not rush towards becoming a ‘hero’ right away, and try to make steady progress, demonstrating your competence.