"How to manage your reaction to anything"

Hi, it's Charlie Hugh-Jones, creator and founder of Living On Purpose, unlocking the power of inspiration, imagination, and innovation to live a richer, more fulfilled, and more abundant life. Welcome to this video. I help people who recognize that they want something to change in their life make powerful decisions and then follow through on them so that they experience more clarity and focus, more energy, greater contentment, and often financial freedom. In this video, you're going to learn how to manage your reaction to anything so that you feel more in control of any situation and less a victim of your moods, emotions, and perhaps even temper. I'm often characterised as someone who's pretty enthusiastic about life, but also calm and not someone to react negatively to things. Well, that was easy when I was successful and when I was in control of my life, or at least thought I was. But when I lost everything through a number of personal tragedies— my career, my marriage, and ultimately my family— I quickly became someone who was volatile, stressed, intense, and very reactionary. 2 questions seemed to be stuck on repeat in my mind: why is this happening to me? And what did I do to deserve this? I never got an answer from anyone that helped. But most of the time I didn't ask any questions at all. I just reacted out of, out of pain or from that quiet anger boiling under the surface, expending so much energy trying to keep control of myself and appear patient in front of others. But gradually I began to look out from within the pain and frustration and saw other people who went through the stuff that was far worse than mine, yet managed to be be calm, grateful, and even happy. So I made one decision. I was going to explore what made those people truly happy. What superpower enabled them to be calm and gave them purpose. And then I was going to equip myself to live like that every day. One of the single biggest mistakes people make is believing that their temperament determines how they react to situations. I'm just not a calm person. Or that it's the circumstance itself itself that drives them to react badly. But this is simply not true. It's a lie we believe that hands our power over to someone or something else. It weakens us and casts us in the role of the victim. Science, philosophy, and many religions seem to agree that in reality our world is made up of 10% of what actually happens, the external, and 90% of how we interpret what happens, the internal. If we keep trying to control what is beyond our control, we will continue to be frustrated feel more powerless and will get more and more tired. If, on the other hand, we look at how we can influence and take control of what goes on in our mind, the internal world, then we can begin a journey that leads us to more happiness, contentment, and increased feelings of purpose and power, no matter what our circumstances are. And that's what I've done. With a lot of trial and error and many wrong turns along the way, I've spent years and a lot of money exploring these things and building my life into a happier, healthier version of me. So here are 3 simple steps you can take today to begin managing your reaction to anything, so you feel more in control of any situation and less a victim of your moods, emotions, and temper. Step 1, breathe. And yes, it is that simple. Research has shown that standing still and concentrating on the most basic act of breathing, starting with a single deep breath, can lower blood pressure and heart rate within a couple of seconds. It can also slow down racing thoughts. Our fight-or-flight reflex gets decoupled when we become still internally. It's a simple pause. It puts some distance between us and the event that triggers our reaction. It gives us space to then engage our thoughts and recognise what the trigger is and then choose a reaction. And yes, this does take practice. Step 2, ask a different question. We have many emotional states that are triggered by external stimuli, but controlled by our beliefs. So rather than asking, why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? Why did they just do that to me? Who do they think they are? Use the moment created by step 1 to ask some different questions. What can I learn from this? What is really going on here? Where's my reaction coming from? What would happen if I forced myself to smile right now? But what if you can't slow down enough to breathe, let alone ask a different question? Well, that's step 3. Wear a simple wristband. Behavioural research has shown that a cotton wristband is a powerful tool to buy time and a reminder to take that first step— breathe— and make space for that second step to ask a different question. When you feel yourself becoming— beginning to react to an event and you want the space to breathe instead of exploding or reacting without thinking, you just need to touch the wristband with the fingers of your other hand. What this does is it sets off the program in your brain that you prepared in advance for a situation just like this. So how do you set up that program? Well, when you put on the wristband, you stop and imagine being more calm, more aware, more conscious, more in control of self. You put it on with what's called intention. In your brain, doing that starts to create an alternate path, a new option in the chain of emotions that are triggered from an external event. That's you reprogramming your brain. If you also tell yourself out loud as you put the wristband on that you are a calm, thoughtful, balanced, and conscious person, then that will increase the effect of the tool too. If you imagine you taking a breath, pausing, and then asking a different question when you put the wristband on, then when you touch it after a little practice, it gives you immediate access to your choice to breathe, pause, think, and be more in control. But sometimes we're so anxious or stressed out and have so many negative thoughts that we can't access our imagination and set our intention. So I'm going to be exploring ways to reduce stress and manage anxiety in another free video that I'm going to release soon. But in the meantime, I hope you got value from this video. If so, please like it and make sure that you subscribe to my YouTube channel. Feel free to share this video on your favourite social media platform and join me over at charliehughjones.com where you can stay connected and sign up for exclusive email updates and get access to more content From my Living On Purpose programme. Thank you so much for watching. I look forward to continuing this journey together in the next video, but until then, bye for now. Bye for now.