Change, real lasting change, requires effort. If you go to any gym in the middle of January it will be so packed that you will be lucky to find an available treadmill. Go back to that same gym in the middle of March and it will be half empty.

I've seen the same thing happen with anger management. Most people approach a course like this like gangbusters telling themselves that I'm gonna lick this thing once and for all and then go all out for five or six weeks. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people about a month into the program say to me "Ya know Doc, I really think I've got this thing l beat; I haven't gotten pissed off in weeks". Thats usually my first sign that a big blowout is just around the corner. Its just human nature - just like the gym, quitting smoking or going on a diet, we all get excited , we are all super aware and super diligent about our behavior and things seem to come so easily. But enthusiasm can only carry most of us so far and then reality starts to creep back in.

The sad part is that when people have a bad day, be it skipping a workout or two, having a couple of cigarettes or getting angry they take that as a sign of defeat - that they just can't overcome their problem. Pardon my technical jargon, but HORSEHOCKEY!! All of these things, anger in particular, are habits that you have had for years and years. Its very rare that someone is able to stop like flicking a switch. It was a gradual process that took years for you to develop a habit and its going to be a gradual process for you to be able to overcome it completely. It takes the average person something like 7 real tries to quit smoking for it to actually stick. You wouldn't read a book on skiing and expect to go out the next day and be the perfect skier. You would expect to fall down a lot and learn from each fall. And, slowly but surely, you would find yourself getting better at it each day.

Anger is no different. I can almost guarantee that you can you that you can watch all the videos, complete all the exercises and you are still going to get mad. The trick is to use these as learning experiences – to review the material we are going to cover in this course, ask yourself where things went wrong and what you can do differently in the future.