How to Take Control of Your Emotions: Building Your Personal Playbook for Confidence and Calm

Host: David Charlton, Sports Psychologist and Mental Toughness Practitioner

Guest: Matt Young, Anxiety and Fear Coach

Process and Emotional Mastery

David: The word “process” gets bandied about so much in sporting settings. I guess that’s where we’re going with this? Creating lasting behavior change—whether from a mental health standpoint or a performance standpoint—is about emotional mastery and putting those key processes and SOPs in place. Not reactive quick fixes.

Matt: Absolutely. There are so many analogies of reactive quick fixes. Look at some football clubs—they’ve been very reactive. Something happens, so they sack the manager, get rid of that, do this, do that. There’s never actually a basis or control within the football club—a process of “this is what we do, this is how we’re doing it, this is our process.”

If I translate that to the listener with their emotions, most people are so reactive to things going on around them that they’re never actually in control of their emotions. They wonder why they’re struggling with these traits all the time.

Everyone—whether working in a football club or in their personal life—reacts to the outside world without knowing, “This is where I’m in alignment. This is where I’m in emotional control. These are my processes.” From that place, you deal and navigate with the outside world. You’re not receptive and reactive to it.

Emotional Control vs. Emotional Management

David: What would you say to the practitioner or coach who has the belief that you can’t control emotions and that emotional management would be their buzzword instead of emotional control?

Matt: That’s a very fair question because it’s honestly the key thing I get when people come to me. They say, “Matt, you talk about overcoming and taking control of anxiety. You can’t do that. You can only cope and manage with it.”

Okay, that’s fair. I can understand why people think that because people have been taught a certain way—that these emotions are things that happen to you. Anxiety, fear, depression—these things are things that happen to you. No one consciously wants these to happen, of course not.

But as I said, there are two parts of your mind: the thinking mind and the emotional mind. My research and expertise show that emotions are not things that we have. Emotions are things that we use and we do. Whether or not someone is aware of why they’re using them is a different matter.

No one is born with anxiety. A child isn’t born with that being who they are. But anxiety becomes a learned emotional response. For example, when I step into an uncomfortable situation where people are judging me, I fear the consequences. I think about everything that could go wrong. I get this feeling arise within me—a swarming sensation—and it becomes so intense that I don’t feel like I can do that thing.

Now that happens one time. The traditional approach would be, “Here’s how you can manage that when it comes up.” My approach is different. That trait has come up to serve a purpose: keeping you away from dealing with that thing over there. Everyone would agree on that.

But why did that trait show up? It might have shown up for Steve, but for Sue, Sally, and Simon, it didn’t show up. Why? Because they didn’t feel more in control of dealing with that situation than they were out of control of the consequences happening. So the trait of anxiety gave them a sense that if you use this trait, we can control what happens because we can keep you away from dealing with that.

Management, in my opinion, is surface level—deal with what we see on the surface. Control is different. We don’t have anxiety or depression. We use and do them. We just have to learn, uncover, and understand why. That’s what I teach because then you have the playbook.

For example, someone might say, “I recognize that every time I feel low and sad, my partner comes to reassure me and it makes me feel better. That doesn’t mean I have depression. It means I’m using certain traits to get deeper emotional needs met within me.”

When you understand that, you understand this simply comes down to an element of control within myself—how am I meeting my emotional needs to control them, as opposed to using these traits to do the job for me? This is where I go into detail with clients, and it can take 20 or 30 minutes, but then people say, “I’ve never seen it from that perspective. That makes complete sense.” Then all of a sudden, it doesn’t become a management issue. It becomes, “How can I take control of this?” And then we can get to work.

The Three Basic Psychological Needs

David: In psychology literature, there’s self-determination theory looking at motivation. Within that, you have three basic psychological needs that help people feel better: autonomy—having a sense of control; connectedness—to other people or nature; and mastery—confidence or being a master of your craft. In sport, giving 100% in training and matches, or educationally being fully focused. If you feel more in control of the situation at hand, you’ve got a can-do attitude toward life. You’re getting toward intrinsic motivation and pushing away that feeling of helplessness.

Matt: Right. And to be transparent, we can’t control what’s going to happen in the next 10 minutes, let alone the next 10 hours. Something might happen on this call. Anything could happen. But what I do have complete control over—in my language—is me, my emotions, my mind.

When you understand the internal playbook of that, when you understand how to master that side of it, I’m never looking—and what I do with my clients—is about trying to control outcomes because that’s where we’re subject to volatility. That’s where I might have done everything I can to get that outcome, but then I’m placing the control with the manager to see if they pick me. Or depending on what side of the bed the manager got out of, they might not fancy it that morning.

All of that I’ve built up is now subject to external factors. That’s never where my basis is. All of my basis is around arming and enhancing the emotional skillset and tools within us. Regardless of what goes on out there, regardless of the volatility of life in many different areas, there’s a knowing within me—not just up here in my head, but actually within my emotions—that says, “You know what, I can deal with this. I know I’m going to be okay. I know how to navigate this situation.”

We all need support, guidance, and advice. I’m no different. But this is essentially where the foundation of what I teach comes from. Otherwise, you’re in a situation where you’re constantly at the beck and call of things happening to you, just trying to get on top of a situation. That’s why most people are stressed or overwhelmed because they’re always trying to control these things.

When it comes to what you mentioned around the three factors, autonomy, I can completely understand the framework of why we’d go down that route. I would say it can lend itself to being a little bit deeper than just making myself feel like I’m intrinsically motivated to deal with this and I’ve got a can-do attitude. That’s a big part, but there’s a deeper part of me that knows something.

Building Your Playbook

David: By focusing on trying to take control of a situation, you’re educating people and changing their perspective to help them get comfortable feeling uncomfortable, to deal with chaos and things that happen in everyday life. Are you designing a playbook and processes to deal with these uncomfortable emotions?

Matt: Yeah, to a certain extent, yes. An example would be, recently, I was working with a professional sports person. When they stepped onto their field of play, they would find themselves in a situation where their heart would start racing, thoughts would run away at 100 miles an hour, their legs would feel heavy, and they couldn’t move.

My initial process is to ask: why? What is causing that? Where does your mind go? What’s your worst-case scenario? What are you stressing, worrying, fearing could happen? From that place, it’s understanding because then this person would say, “You know what, I can’t step out onto my field of play because of my anxiety.”

The general route would be, “Okay, let’s manage that.” But I go a little deeper. I say, “No, this anxiety is currently bridging the gap. Let’s eliminate anxiety and enhance you so that anxiety doesn’t have to do that role. Currently, anxiety is trying to keep you away from dealing with that thing that’s really uncomfortable over there.”

So instead, I ask, “What is it that you want to feel more of?” They might say, “I want to feel more confident, more purposeful, more passionate, more driven, more excited, more peaceful when I step onto that field of play.”

“Great. What do we need to do to emotionally upgrade and enhance that part of you?” When we start to put that playbook in place and enhance those emotional parts within them, when they step onto that field of play, this whole trait of anxiety is nowhere to be seen. Because that was only filling the void that was previously left from them not being in control of how they wanted to feel.

This is a clear analogy of someone I worked with recently who went through that process and is doing very well now. Because that’s the core essence of it—not just managing “how can we try and cope with this situation in the best way,” but actually taking control of it.

Personal Playbooks for Everyday Life

David: I was thinking about my own playbook currently. A lot of people working from home find it very easy to get stuck on their laptop for two, three, four-plus hours. Part of my playbook is doing no more than 90 minutes and then taking two or three minutes to go for a walk or do some exercise. When I find myself in moments with brain fog from complex tasks, I take myself out for a walk for a period. It’s critical.

Matt: I’m no different. I have a timer on my desk. I’ll set it for 20 minutes—focus here, do this, deliver, do what you need to do—then go away from your desk and come back for another 30-minute session. I have that because it’s part of my process in my business.

Now, the other side of that, because we’re singing off the same hymn sheet, is that when I don’t have a playbook in place, I sit here and all of a sudden I find myself dwelling, getting sidetracked, caught up in something else, flicking through Facebook or Instagram. Then I start saying, “Matt, I’m really struggling with procrastination.” And we start believing that our identity is one that procrastinates.

Now we’re dealing with, “Okay, this is the best way to manage procrastination.” No, no, no. Let’s strip this back. The reason is because from the get-go, we haven’t got playbook and emotional tools in place. I know this sounds simple in the way we’re explaining it, but emotional tools in place for you to enhance how you want to feel in these moments. Procrastination is just coming in as a byproduct, the same way anxiety turns up as a byproduct.

When you deal with the deeper core of it, these traits don’t need to show up in these ways.

How To Make Changes In Emotional Habits

David: I’ve got a few more questions, but I’m also aware of the time. One question before we look at takeaways: do you have advice for someone listening who thinks this all sounds great but really struggles to actually make the changes?

Matt: Right, I think a couple of things with this. The foundation of anyone’s progress is a word that someone said to me long ago, and I never really understood it, but now I really do: ownership.

What I mean by ownership is not taking blame, not blaming ourselves. People can go down the route of “it’s my fault I’m feeling this way.” It’s no one’s fault. It’s no one’s problem. It’s definitely not a finger-pointing process. But it is our responsibility.

When we can take responsibility—ownership as I call it—regardless of what he’s done, she’s done, whether the manager left me out, whether that club let me go, whatever it may be, we can start to say, “Right, what can I do to effect change? What can I do to apply some strategies? What do I need to learn to be able to make myself feel more emotionally and enhance my emotional state?”

Then all of a sudden, I’m not looking out there for answers anymore. We start to go internal. The question becomes, “What can I do?” Not “What do I need out there from someone, or what does someone need to do, or why are they acting that way to me, or they trigger me?” It’s like, what gives anyone the God-given right to think they are the centre of the universe?

We’re the centre of our own universe, absolutely. But we’re not the centre of the universe. When you can take that ownership from that perspective, you start to look at this and say, “Right, what do I need to learn? Where do I need to grow? What do I need to enhance? What within me do I need to update?” Then you look down different avenues in life. You follow different people. You listen to podcasts like this, and the reason people are listening right now is because they’re looking for a certain part of that.

All of a sudden, you go down a route of saying, “What do I need to do to put myself in control of me? Regardless of whether I’m dropped, regardless of what he says, regardless of what she says, I’m in control.”

The foundation of that starts with ownership. But there’s a fine line—most people have a battle between what’s ownership and what’s blame. As human beings, we don’t want to blame ourselves. And I’m not blaming anyone. Regardless of what’s gone on, I don’t believe anyone’s to blame for this. But where you are is your responsibility—it’s my responsibility when it comes to me.

That comes from a place of saying, “Right, what’s been has been. What can I do right now? That’s ownership to me.” That’s why I think, for the listener, one of the key things is a term I’ve heard called radical transparency. It’s having a radically transparent approach and asking, “Right, where is it I’m not satisfied or happy or content with currently in my life?”

Because if that’s in your performance at work, forget saying, “You know, my boss treats me this way, my boss does that.” That might be true, and believe me, that needs to be dealt with in an appropriate way—I’m not neglecting that. But that doesn’t change your situation right now. What does change it is what you can own and grow and change and take control within yourself.

David: When you talk about the blame side of things, a lot of people with blame and criticism can turn it inward on themselves and be very self-critical. And jealousy as well can be a real strong emotion, especially in this world with social media where they can compare themselves to people so much. There’s something in trying to be kinder to yourself and redirecting yourself back to yourself and not other people.

Matt: Absolutely, you’re 100% right. When you look at jealousy as an example, when do you see these patterns? You’re like, “Okay, why does anyone feel jealous?” Well, I feel jealous because that person has what I want and I don’t have it.

But why are you jealous? Because if they have that, it means they might get praise, adulation, recognition—which is what I want.

So that’s really what we’re jealous of. It’s not that we’re jealous of what they’re doing; we’re jealous of what they’re receiving as a result of that.

What that highlights to me is there is a feeling within me of being out of control from that love, that recognition, that support, that adulation. I use this emotion as a way to try and keep me away from it. So if I can work with that person to say, “Right, how can we enhance and create more of that love, more of that recognition, more of that closeness, more of that adulation within yourself?” I have many different methods and therapeutic ways I go through this with people.

When we start to enhance that, then all of a sudden, like what you see so many times with successful people, they don’t become jealous of someone else. They’re more like, “Good on you, I’m really pleased for you as well,” because they feel it internally. So now they’re happy that you are too.

When I didn’t feel it internally, I was jealous. Now I have it, I’m pleased for you as well. And that’s the key difference in what I teach and what I do.

Final Takeaways

David: I could talk about this for hours. Let me ask one final question: can you sum this up into three key takeaways for the listeners?

Matt: Three key takeaways. First, regardless of the situation—and I’m never invalidating or neglecting what anyone’s ever been through or any challenge they’re facing—how is it that you can look internal? How can you take ownership of this within yourself, regardless of what’s been, regardless of blame or fault?

That ownership is going to give you the key to unlock the second step: how can I enhance my control around this? What I mean by control is not controlling out there, but controlling how I feel around certain situations. How can I enhance more love? More self-connection? More confidence? Whatever it may be—more passion within me.

And my third step around that is, like anything, the best way I’ve found that fast-tracks that is to surround yourself in an environment that promotes exactly that. The listeners of this podcast are here because there’s a growth mindset, a certain element in them that wants to grow, wants to learn, wants to be in that environment.

I use a crass analogy for this: if you want to lose weight but your friends want to spend every single day in McDonald’s, it’s going to be very hard for you. Similarly, if you’re looking to take control, you want to take ownership, and you’re saying, “You know what, this isn’t going to define me, I’m going to be in control”—if you’re in an environment where people are blaming, low on their energy, low on their vibe, low on their nature and looking to pin blame and jealousy—it’s going to be very hard to stay in that place.

So my three key takeaways are: ownership, then enhance the emotional control within yourself, and third, surround yourself in an environment that promotes that. Because once you do that, believe me, results in whatever area of life you’re looking for—whether it’s anxiety, fear, phobias, whatever it may be—can happen a lot faster and a lot quicker than probably what people currently believe.