Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
Draw a small circle on three separate scraps of paper without thinking about it. Then look: same size, same spot on the page, same direction of stroke, same starting point, nearly every time.
It is worth actually doing rather than reading about, because the evidence is yours and it is hard to argue with. Nobody chose those four things, they came out preset. If a plain circle arrives preprogrammed, it is no great leap to think that the way you answer a certain tone of voice does too.
Qur’an and Sunnah
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply, 'Peace' (Quran 25:63). Character is described here in how people walk and what comes out of them when they are needled, which is exactly where the automatic things live.
وَعِبَادُ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَمۡشُونَ عَلَى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ هَوۡنࣰ ا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ ٱلۡجَٰهِلُونَ قَالُواْ سَلَٰمࣰ ا
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply, ‘Peace’
Qur’an 25:63read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a series of experiments, an established habit kept interfering with what people had planned to do, and forming an if then plan only partly cut through it, less so when the habit was strong. That is the same pull you are watching in the circles, in miniature. The experiments used everyday habits in volunteers, so they show the pull exists rather than measuring it in an argument.
Webb TL, Sheeran P, Luszczynska A. (2009). Planning to break unwanted habits: habit strength moderates implementation intention effects on behaviour change.. The British journal of social psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Seeing your own automatic behaviour somewhere harmless makes it believable somewhere costly.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Aim for the cat rather than the dog. The dog goes off the second the door knocks, while the cat waits, watches, and still moves decisively when it decides to move.
The version of you making sensible plans this afternoon is not the version standing in the kitchen at eleven at night. Plan for the other one.
The relief people describe afterwards has little to do with clever insight. It is the feeling of being back behind the wheel, which is a large change if you have been living as though other people operate you.