Episode 528 · Feb 9, 2022

How to Stop Yourself From Losing Control of Your Emotions

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In this episode of The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III explores one of the most common yet rarely discussed challenges high achievers face: losing control of their emotions. Drawing on a powerful Zen Habits article, George walks you through exactly why we spiral from a small frustration into a full emotional meltdown, and more importantly, what you can do to stop it.

This is not about suppressing who you are. It is about understanding your patterns well enough to catch them before they catch you.

Why High Achievers Struggle With Emotional Control

Passion and determination are two of the greatest strengths a driven person can have. But those same qualities can work against you when a small trigger ignites a reaction you did not choose. High achievers tend to feel things deeply. That intensity fuels your ambition, but it can also send you into a reactive spiral that burns through your focus, your relationships, and your day.

George points out that this is not a character flaw. It is a pattern, and patterns can be changed.

The Spark Before the Forest Fire

The initial feeling that sets off an emotional spiral is rarely a major disaster. It is usually just a small tug at your emotions: a moment of frustration, a hint of fear, a flash of self-doubt. George describes it clearly:

"This initial feeling of fear or uncertainty or frustration isn't really a problem. It's just a feeling, an initial tug at our heart and our emotions."

The real trouble does not come from the event itself. It comes from the narrative you build around it afterward. You start telling yourself a story about why someone was wrong, or why you failed, or how serious this problem is, and that story grows until you are in full disaster mode. A spark becomes a forest fire.

How the Spiral Actually Works

Once the narrative takes hold, coping behaviors kick in: yelling, shutting down, overeating, withdrawing, or sinking into a funk. These responses feel natural in the moment, but they extend the damage far beyond the original trigger. Understanding this sequence is the first step toward interrupting it.

The event itself is small. The story you build around it is what grows out of control. When you recognize that distinction, you start to see where your actual leverage is.

Catching It Early: The Key to Breaking the Pattern

George's central insight is timing. If you can notice the spark before it becomes a fire, the situation is far more manageable. A single deep breath and a moment of space can be enough to let the feeling pass without feeding it.

"The trick is to catch it early. When it's just a little spark and it hasn't turned into a big forest fire yet, it's obviously much more manageable."

Catching it early requires two things: reflection and preparation. You already know what tends to trigger you. Think through those situations in advance, decide how you want to respond, and make a clear intention. When the trigger arrives, you will recognize it sooner because you have already rehearsed the moment.

Neuroplasticity: Your Brain Can Be Rewired

This is not just motivational language. George references neuroplasticity to explain why repetition matters so much. Neurons that fire together wire together. Every time you catch yourself early and choose a different response, you are literally building a new neural pathway. The more frequently you practice, the stronger that pathway becomes.

This means emotional control is a skill, not a personality trait you either have or do not have. You build it through consistent, repeated practice, and it gets easier over time.

Action Steps

Identify one area in your life where you tend to react on autopilot and the pattern shows up more often than you would like.
Before the next time that trigger appears, decide in advance exactly how you want to respond.
The next time you feel the first tug of that familiar emotion, pause, take a breath, and name the feeling out loud or silently to yourself.
Treat the process like a game: catch it, redirect it, rinse and repeat. Frequency and repetition are what wire the new pattern.
After each attempt, reflect briefly. You do not need perfection; you need practice.

You Are in Control

Emotional mastery is not about becoming someone different. It is about reclaiming the choice that exists between what happens to you and how you respond. Stephen Covey called that space between stimulus and response the seat of your freedom. George frames it the same way: you have the ability to take proactive action in your own life.

It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live. Start with one trigger, one intention, and one breath at a time.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Good morning, good morning, and welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. George Wright III here with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. If this is your first time joining us, what I like to do each day is give you a little bit of education, some ideas throughout the week to be able to help you in your mindset, your money, your business, your investing, your lifestyle. and today will be no different but if you haven't yet go ahead and hit like and subscribe so that you don't miss any other episodes and all I ask is that if you do get some value from this you share it with someone help us to be able to spread the message and share these ideas and thoughts and concepts that that we're putting out there for you in order to keep you going on your journey you know this is a community of high achievers individuals that are driven and passionate entrepreneurs, investors, you know, and even individuals that are working on communication, relationships, and personal growth, because that is what this is all about. We are a community of personal growth and financial education. So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today is, have you ever had situations in your life, and this is a rhetorical question, because I think the answer is probably going to be yes for most of the people in this community, but have you ever had a situation in your life where you just kind of felt like you lost control. You just, you know, you're so driven and passionate about your life and your business and your relationships that sometimes you just, you react and you don't get that moment, that moment that Stephen Covey talks about between stimulus and response where you can slow down and decide, are you going to react or are you going to be proactive? And this is typical with high achievers, right? Personalities come with ups and downs, passion and determination can sometimes be a challenge. And I came across an amazing article on Zen Habits. I talk about Zen Habits every once in a while because I subscribe to a lot of different podcasts, newsletters, and sources that I use to kind of diversify my thought process at times. And there's a great article I'm going to share with you. It was a great blog entry about this exact topic, how to stop yourself from losing control. And so I want to share this with you and I hope you enjoy. I hope it's something that'll, if anything else, it just gets you to think about the fact that you are in control of your life. You do create your life. You do have the ability to take action and be proactive and prepared to be able to handle the emotions and the feelings and things that you experience in your life, especially when you have a lot going on. So here we go. if you someone who tends to spin out of control into a meltdown a rage shutdown anxiety attack or things like that they can be very difficult And a small frustration or fear can be turned into something huge and it can ultimately ruin your entire day So if that's you, know that you're not alone. This happens to a lot of people in a variety of different ways, like getting frustrated with someone and then turning that into anger that can rage or simmer all day long, putting you in a bad mood, or feeling fear and hurt. you might get caught up in a mental narrative that causes you to get stuck inside your head or have anxiety attacks or you might you know take hours and hours to recover from it or feeling bad about something you did or you failed to do especially if you're personally growing you know you might spin out of control into feelings of regret or feeling bad or disappointed in yourself and you'll drop into a state of discouragement about everything. But what can we really do if this is happening? Let's take a look at what's going on first and then let's look at some ideas for what you can do. So how do we spin into this disaster mode? Well, the initial difficulty that we encounter is rarely a major disaster. It's really important to remember that. It's usually just a feeling of uncertainty or fear or something like that. Frustration when someone behaves in a way that we don't like or fear and hurt that we feel we're being criticized and we get defensive or maybe it's self-doubt or lack of confidence when we don't do as well as we'd like to at something and it causes procrastination, for example. This initial feeling of fear or uncertainty or frustration isn't really a problem. It's just a feeling. it's an initial tug at our heart and our emotions and it's very important to realize that it's not a problem it's just a feeling it's just emotions so the real difficulty comes not from the actual event it comes from what happens afterwards and and i think you know what i'm talking about you know we feel this feeling of anxiety or fear or uncertainty or someone rubs us the wrong way and we go into this defense mechanism of spinning one particular narrative in our mind that may or may not even be the case and that narrative may be about why the other person's wrong or why you know you're wrong or how much of a huge deal this is and this continues in a just a fiery blaze until we're in a full-on disaster mode where we've gone from a little spark to a full forest fire. And then we might have other things we do to cope with this disaster like yelling or getting upset or shutting down hiding comforting ourselves with food or overeating or drugs or addictions or whatever it is that you usually use for a coping mechanism And a lot of times just going into a depression or a funk So how do you really stop these situations before the meltdown occurs? Even if this is not that big of a deal, it's just a passing storm. We've got to find a way not to beat ourselves up if this is happening. In fact, what we need to do is actually give ourselves a little bit more patience and love. And if you look at the process that I just kind of walked you through, the first step in the process is really not a big deal. It's just a thing. It's just an event that happened, a tug at our emotions and a little spark of uncertainty or fear. And the trick is to catch it early. See, if you can learn to catch this early, you know, when it's just a little spark and it hasn't turned into a big forest fire yet, it's obviously much more manageable. And so we can simply give ourselves some space to feel the fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty, frustration, or whatever it is you're feeling if you catch it. And we can take a few breaths. We can give ourselves a little space if you need to or, you know, patience, and then let it go and move on with the rest of our day. Well, you know, as you think about this, how do we catch it early? And it's easier said than done, right? Well, it all boils down to practice. We notice when there's a full forest fire and then we reflect on it so that in the future, when it's just a spark, we can take proactive action. And at what point can we catch it? How do we identify these behaviors and reflect on being prepared to catch them in the future, right? Then slowly, with this kind of practice and reflection, we're going to be able to notice these things when they're just a little spark. You know, like, ooh, wow, that's not cool. I'm feeling a little upset right now, or I'm feeling, and you can name it, right? Catch it in the moment before it completely gets, you know, gasoline thrown on the situation. and when we're able to catch it early, we can sort of pause and the key is catching it early, but you can't just do it in the moment. A lot of times you have to reflect ahead of time and be prepared. Look, we know what types of things will trigger us, right? We know what types of situations put us in those uncomfortable feelings. So when you know that ahead of time, you can notice those feelings when they happen and you can be present and you can take a deep breath. Give yourself some space. And because when we get caught up in the narrative, which we will, you know it hard to notice that type of thing So we got to catch it early on And then you can give yourself some patience and practice So when you catch it early you can practice how you respond And being prepared ahead of time, making a clear intention. Remember, it's like I said before, catch it early, practice, and be prepared. Because we've talked about this concept of neuroplasticity. It's never too late to start creating new habits or mental patterns that you have in your life. Remember that neurons that fire together wire together. So the key is practice and repetition and frequency. So the more often you catch yourself early, the more frequently you do that, the more you're going to find the success in rewiring the patterns of how you react to things. and so when you can catch yourself and you can do that more often more repetitive more frequent you're going to be able to learn to be much more in control of your emotions and your feelings so i want to give you a challenge here i want to end this this podcast with a challenge i would like you to identify an area in your life that you feel like you maybe react to and it's a pattern you do more often than not i want you to determine in advance what your response is going to be and how you're going to handle it. Think through this. The mental exercise is no little deal. This is a big deal here. And then I want you to, once you've done that, work to catch yourself really early the next time it happens and change how you respond to that. And then think of it as a game. Rinse and repeat. Repetition. Frequency. Wire that brain in that process so that you can begin to become more a master of your emotions rather than motions and emotions mastering you. So that's my thought for today. I hope it's something that gives you a little bit to think about, but also some techniques and ideas on how to change the behavior and pattern that I've kind of outlined in this episode. I want you to do me a favor also and hit me up on The Daily Mastermind on Facebook or Instagram and post this, share this episode and tag me in that post and let me know what it is that you're working on. And let's see if we can work together in order to help you to create a better practice, better daily habits. And I'd love to hear from you. So hit me up on The Daily Mastermind at The Daily Mastermind with Facebook or Instagram. And I'll look forward to talking with you a little bit more tomorrow. Once again, my name is George Wright III. This has been The Daily Mastermind. I hope you have an amazing day. you