Self-regulation is being able to control our own thoughts, feelings, and actions for our own benefit.
It involves monitoring one’s own actions and reactions. When one engages in self-regulation, he avoids impulsive reactions.
It also involves predicting the consequences of our behaviour and avoiding behavioural patterns which can negatively affect ourselves or others in the future.
Self-regulation also involves focusing on certain parts of life and ignoring some other parts for the time being, e.g. as exams approach, a person will stop spending time on Netflix and focus on studies.
Higgins’ research on regulatory focus showed that people either have promotion regulatory focus or prevention regulatory focus.
It means people either focus on achieving positive outcomes or don’t do anything in order to prevent negative outcomes.
Self-regulation has crucial implications in our life.