We've all believed blindly about this: We've been told that self-control means never ever having bad thoughts. Never getting triggered. Never reacting emotionally. Well, that's wrong. You see, you don't choose your first thought. It happens suddenly. It fires before you even have time to decide. That's conditioning. But then, what comes next is the second thought. And here, you do have a choice. You can decide whether to believe it. Escalate it. Act on it. In that tiny space between the first and the second thought is where you either repeat the same mistakes or stop repeating them. Because, well, you don't become a better person by never having bad thoughts. You become a better person by noticing them and choosing differently.