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Ranting doesn’t have to be a waste of breathe and time.
you might turn a rant into a powerful tool for productivity.
Learn how to transform your sense of victim hood and irritability to self-empowerment and mental clarity.
The rewards of a heartfelt rant don’t come easy.
You have to put in the work, sweat, and maybe tears and refine your art of rant.
Here are seven crucial steps for turning a rant into a productivity power tool:
1.
Give Yourself Permission to Rant
Society has a hard time stomaching anger.
The slightest drop in the bloodstream is sign that you’re savage.
But anger is merely a signal that was biologically hardwired over centuries of evolution.
Now that threat may be real or perceived, but that’s beside the point.
Ranting gives a voice to upset, irritation, frustration, and anger.
Ranting helps you connect with that signal of threat.
Give yourself permission to rant all out, until you know what that signal is.
you could say to yourself, “Man, I’m really fired up right now.
I’m going to take this time to get this rant out of my system.
When: The best time to rant is as soon as you start to feel upset about the trigger.
When circumstances don’t allow, you could reschedule to later.
Which makes it harder to get in touch with your original feelings.
Avoid mood-altering substances period, as they’re neither helpful nor healthy.
Your rant needs to be in raw form for you to shape anything meaningful from it.
If it’s fake, it’s just a waste of time.
If it’s forced, it’s not useful.
That usually means in private.
That’s not ranting in raw form, but domesticated rant.
And it falls short because it’s diluted.
Your aim is controlled recklessness, not just recklessness.
That requires ground rules.
This is where having an audience can get tricky, and drawing the lines gets tough.
Again, it’s safest to rant in private.
so that get clear on how to ultimately improve my relationship with Billy/the weather/Aunt Jane/my car.
Or to walk away from the unhealthy relationship.”
Your short term goal is to rant about Billy/the weather/Aunt Jane/your car.
The short-term is all about identifying problems.
The long-term is all about finding solutions.
Athirdground rule you better have is:
“I won’t act on any rash decisions.
Which is a separate issue entirely from actually following through.
And this ties into Step 7.
Are there any other helpful ground rules it’s possible for you to think of?
First of all, it’s not comfortable losing control or feeling helpless.
It’s no fun to admit that you’re upset in the first place.
Exactly how you want to say it.
Is your best friend a big meanie because he ditched you for a girl?
Then start there with “Bigger-Than-Big Meanie.”
Don’t make excuses:So your pal fell head over heels for this girl?
And it still hurts?
Stay with the hurt, don’t make excuses.
Glossing over his actions and looking for excuses won’t do you any good.
And if you’re distracted from the problem, productivity goes out the window.
Suspend reason:Reason has no place in a rant.
Reason is for speaking calmly over a business meeting, or drafting up a contract with your landlord.
Jump the gun:Does it feel like your best friend is going to come around anytime soon?
Until you’re just a speck of dust on his radar?
Well, if it feels that way, voice it.
Get it all out of your system.
Project the worst possible scenario.
It could very well happen.
It’s important for you to look at.
Because that’s just evolution working for you.
Anger was designed to alert you of danger, both present and future.
So jump the gun, and listen.
Forget your manners:Okay, “Biggest-of-Big Meanies” is a little weak.
If it’s too weak for your rant, replace it with a stronger descriptor.
Ranting is not about political correctness or respect or understanding.
That may mean recruiting a whole list of not-nice words.
Be uncensored:The best way to kill a rant is to censor it.
And then you’re left with unexpressed feelings and a problem that goes unaddressed.
So keep it uncensored.
And that means saying naughty words if it feels natural.
Did you know that swearing can actually be useful to your mental and physical health?
Swearing helps you cope with pain (which anger also signals to) because it gives it a voice.
Center on yourself:Ranting is all about you.
How you were wronged.
How you’ve been slighted.
The respect you deserve.
Your efforts that go unacknowledged.
Keep the rant all about you – you’re the center of attention.
Or, if psychoanalyzing why Billy hates your cat makes you feel better, go ahead.
The point is to only rant about what ultimately makes you feel heard.
Even if you’re ranting alone in your room, you’re still being heard.
Get a drink of water.
Take a cold shower.
Go for a walk.
Fix some dinner for you and your cat.
so you can make your rant useful, you gotta decode it.
You usually get ticked off when someone or something violated your personal boundaries.
Personal boundaries are imaginary limits that you make up to make it protect your health and sanity.
These limits prevent you from expending your time or other personal resources beyond the critical point.
You might have a boundary for the latest time during the day that you’ll answer a text.
On a normal night, you stop all email, chatting, and texting at 9pm.
You go to bed an hour later and wake up the next morning feeling recharged and refreshed.
Now let’s say that one night you forget to turn off your iPhone.
You get a text from your friend at 9:15pm.
You go ahead and text back, thinking it will be quick.
At this point, it’s 9:45, and you’re getting really antsy.
And now that she’s gone, he’s crawling back to you?
The point is, you’re likely upset for a lot of different reasons.
One of them being that you’re not going to get to bed at your usual time.
And you’re not going to wake up in the morning feeling recharged and refreshed.
Because ultimately, you violated your own boundary (of not texting after 9m).
Much of the time, boundary violations do involve your action, or at least your consent.
So it’s good practice to note whether you have a role in the ordeal.
When you effectively manage your personal resources, productivity is the natural by-product.
The three most popular topics to rant about are lost money, wasted time, and wrecked relationships.
Each of these is a vital personal resource in your life.
Money and time are important for obvious reasons having to do with your survival and mental health.
Other resources include energy, attention, empathy, and creativity.
Figure out what that resource is, and then follow the next suggestion.
Confront the sleazy online business to get your guaranteed refund.
Carve out some vacation time to make up for all the overtime.
Doing so means managing your resources more effectively.
This is the core of productivity.
Clue in on shady characters:
And then there are times when you could’t recover lost or damaged resources.
And you have to cut your losses and move one.
While you do, verify to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Avoid shady characters, or shady situations, that will likely only drain more of your valuable resources.
Whoever you cussed out in your rant is a good candidate for a shady character.
Set a contingency plan that protects your boundaries and your personal resources:
This is where everything comes together.
Get it down on paper what you’ve learned from your rant.
Doing so not only saves you time and other valuable personal resources.
It also saves you heartbreak because you’re no longer the victim.
And help you figure out what you’re able to afford to leave behind.
Such as time, money, energy, and attention.
Ranting is just anger bubbling to the surface.
