Take Control Of Your Temper With The ‘Walking Down The Hall’ Test

Sometimes the best way to gain control of your emotions is to step back and think about what you might look and sound like to a stranger.

Photo by Marco FrontSoldier.

Controlling your temper is all about recognising anger early on and taking measures to keep it from overriding your normal actions. The next time you’re upset with someone, Ross McCammon at Entrepreneur suggests you use the “walking down the hall” test:

The test is: What do you look like to someone walking down the hall who can see your interaction but can’t hear it? If you are acting aggressively, menacingly or otherwise “attitudinal,” then that will be apparent to an observer. But if you’re expressing yourself calmly, your “I am feeling anger right now and I want to talk about it” will look to an outside observer like “I have some thoughts right now and I want to talk about it.”

You can’t really prevent yourself from feeling emotions. If you’re angry, it’s OK to tell them you’re angry. But what you do have some control over is how you express those emotions. There’s always a way to do it without drawing the attention of passerby, make believe or not.

Don’t Pop Your Top: 5 Thoughts to Keep You Calm in an Angry Moment [Entrepreneur]