Self-regulation is having a moment. Learn to manage your emotions. Notice the impulse before acting on it. Calm yourself before responding. Stop letting anxiety, anger, insecurity or excitement run the show.

Good advice. Most of us could use more of it.

Without enough self-regulation, we can be exhausting. We interrupt. Overreact. Talk too much. Get defensive. Turn disagreement into conflict. Fish for endless reassurance. Give advice nobody asked for. Make the joke that should have stayed inside our head. Confidence becomes dominance. Enthusiasm becomes monopolizing. Directness becomes aggression.

So we work on ourselves. We get better at noticing the impulse before acting on it. We learn to listen, we stop interrupting, we become less reactive, and we read the room.

Great. Now what?

Because there is a strange danger in treating self-regulation as the destination. If every improvement consists of doing or saying a little less and imposing ourselves a little less, eventually we can become wonderfully regulated people who don't bring very much.

Self-Regulation: Stop Making Yourself Hard to Be Around

Some behavior simply deserves to disappear.

If I interrupt you constantly, learning to stop doesn't make me less authentic. It means you no longer have to fight me for conversational air time. If I turn every disagreement into a contest, backing off doesn't suppress my opinions, it makes disagreement with me less expensive. If insecurity makes me show off, seek reassurance or dominate a room, regulating it may allow everyone, including me, to relax.

This is one reason “just be yourself” is incomplete advice. Some parts of ourselves could use a volume knob.

But good regulation should be selective. The goal isn't to reduce ourselves. It is to reduce the behaviors that get in the way of ourselves.

That distinction matters because from the outside, regulation and suppression can look almost identical.

Self-Suppression: When the Volume Knob Becomes an Off Switch

I don't make the joke. Maybe that's excellent regulation. It was mean, badly timed or not nearly as funny as I thought. Or maybe I don't make the joke because jokes don't seem to land around you anymore.

I don't disagree. Maybe I've learned that every disagreement doesn't require my participation. Good regulation. Or maybe disagreeing with you reliably creates so much friction that I've learned not to bother.

I don't suggest the restaurant, pursue the subject, tell the second story, show how excited I am or say that something bothered me.

Eventually I may become remarkably easy to be around.

But am I better, or am I smaller?

That's the hair split.

Regulation edits the behavior. Suppression edits the person.

With regulation, I still own the choice. I could say the thing, but decide this isn't the moment. Tomorrow I remain free to disagree, tell another joke, suggest a different plan or say that I'm angry.

With suppression, my range begins to narrow. I predict your reaction before deciding whether to contribute. Certain subjects become unavailable. Certain opinions aren't worth expressing. Some parts of my personality appear mostly when you aren't around.

I have learned the field.

Less of me works better here.

Autonomy: Who Is Making the Choice?

This may be the easiest way to tell regulation and suppression apart.

Healthy self-regulation is an exercise of autonomy. I decide what to do with me.

I feel angry and decide not to yell. I want to interrupt and decide to listen. I have a joke and decide it isn't worth making. The impulse remains mine and the decision remains mine.

Suppression is different. The environment has started making the decision before I do. I have learned what gets rewarded, ignored, corrected or punished, and I adjust myself in anticipation.

Nobody necessarily ordered me to shrink. Relationships train us quietly.

That is why a relationship can actually become easier as it becomes worse. Fewer arguments. Fewer misunderstandings. Fewer irritating behaviors. Everything looks calmer.

Maybe we're getting fewer strikeouts because I stopped swinging, but also fewer base hits and home runs.

Expansion: Regulation Is Supposed to Buy Us Freedom

So what comes after self-regulation?

Expansion.

The point of learning to manage ourselves isn't to become perfectly controlled, frictionless humans. It is to get the parts of ourselves that interfere with life under enough control that the rest of us has more room to come out.

Regulate insecurity so you can take more social risks. Control your temper so you can have deeper disagreements. Stop monopolizing conversations so they can go somewhere you didn't expect. Become less defensive so someone can tell you something surprising. Stop needing every plan to go your way so another person's idea can change the evening.

Good regulation should create more possible moves, not fewer.

And it should do the same for the people around us. If I regulate my need to dominate a conversation, you get more room to talk. If I regulate my need to control the plan, you get more room to contribute. If I regulate my reaction to disagreement, you get more room to tell me what you actually think.

My regulation can increase your autonomy.

Now something interesting can happen. You contribute something I didn't request or predict. I respond. You respond to that. The conversation gets longer. The subject gets deeper. The evening changes direction. Neither of us quite knows what happens next.

The relationship expands.

Expansion: Become More, Not Just Better Behaved

Around some people we can feel this happening. We become funnier, more curious, more generous, more adventurous. We tell the second story. Follow the strange association. Make the invitation. Admit something. Stay with the conversation another ten minutes because neither person wants to leave it.

We aren't behaving badly. We are regulated enough to be free.

That's an important destination because a perfectly regulated person isn't necessarily a most enjoyable person. You can eliminate interruption, neediness, complaining, defensiveness and every badly timed joke and still leave the room wondering why nobody particularly wants to have dinner with you.

Removing the bad isn't the same as creating the good.

Self-regulation clears space.

Then something has to grow in it.

Curiosity, humor, warmth, initiative, generosity, play, opinions, enthusiasm, ideas, and invitations. Whatever the good parts of you happen to be.

And ideally, you create enough space for the other person's good parts to grow too.

The Test: Better or Smaller?

Maybe this is the check we should occasionally run after all our work on ourselves.

Am I becoming easier to be around because I have learned to regulate the behaviors that interfere with other people?

Excellent.

But have I also become more cautious? More agreeable? Less spontaneous? Less willing to risk a joke, an unpopular opinion, an unusual invitation, or an enthusiastic response?

Have I become better or merely smaller?

Self-regulation is valuable partly because of what it makes possible afterward.

The goal isn't endless control.

It is enough control to create freedom.

Regulate what gets in the way. Then use the space you created to expand.