Impulsive behaviors are done by everyone at some point in their lives.  It’s not always a problem to be impulsive or have some impulsive behaviors.  It’s only a problem when these behaviors start affecting your life or the people in your life.  It’s a problem when these behaviors become destructive and damaging in your day to day existence.

What are impulsive behaviors

Impulsive behaviors are when a person acts quickly with no thought to the consequences.  An impulsive person would not think beyond that exact moment in the present time.  Emotionally immature people tend to be more impulsive than mature adults, but some adults do not learn their lessons as children and continue to have impulsive behaviors into adulthood.

Sometimes, impulsive behavior is part of an impulse control disorder or other mental health disorder. This may be the case of recurring impulsive behaviors.  You can recognize these disorders when:

• there’s a pattern of impulsive behavior

• They’re unable to gain control over impulses

• there are other signs and symptoms of other mental illnesses

Impulsive behavior examples

Acting impulsively is being spontaneous and can be quite fun if done in a safe way and if it doesn’t affect others.  Once you start repeating impulsive behaviors to be harmful in some way, it’s time to start controlling your behaviors.

Some examples of impulsive behaviors are

• Bingeing on shopping, gambling and eating

• Destruction of property out of anger

• Escalating problems by taking minor inconveniences and making them into something urgent

• Frequent Outburst especially if it’s uncalled for

• Starting over by joining and quitting groups very quickly

• Oversharing by talking without thinking

• Physical Violence towards others

• Higher Risk Sex with others

• Self-harm

Causes of Impulsive behavior

Making a decision is a complex process and the reason behind having impulses is not always a concrete answer.  The answer behind impulse control may have to do with the development of the prefrontal lobe and the person’s emotional development.  Many factors can increase the possibility of being more impulsive such as genetics, environment, brain function, brain injury and childhood trauma.

Steps to decreasing impulsive behaviors

It’s important to remember that impulsive behaviors isn’t always the fault of the impulsive person.  If someone in your life is being impulsive, you can help them by making them aware of the impulsive behaviors and how it affects them later in life, explore alternative behaviors by role playing and start teaching and practicing patience with them daily.

To control your own impulsive tendencies, you can mentally walk through potential scenarios and practice how to stop and think before acting.  Dealing directly to behaviors makes it harder to binge, splurge or dive headfirst into things.  Practice  increasing your self discipline to further your long term behavior progress and goal accomplishing.

Impulsive behaviors can be damaging to yourself and your close relationships, depending on how toxic and severe the behavior is.  The first step is to discover that you are having impulsive behaviors.  The Next step is working towards being and becoming better at controlling your impulsive behaviors.  Check out my other videos about creating good habits, creating good Morning routines and building self discipline to learn more about building a better future for yourself.