The Give and Take of Control

In our last ezine we discussed finding your peak stress zone. One of the points I touched on in that article was “take control of the things you can.” I had a few emails about this over the last couple of weeks, apparently it’s a challenge many of you face, and wanted more information on.

First, and this is really important, you CANNOT control everything. You just can’t. It’s not possible. You need to accept this crucial fact before you can move on.

Certain things will happen each day that are out of your control. For example, you can’t convince rain to stop falling, or the snow to melt. That traffic jam on your morning commute, your neighbours baby that cries at night and keeps you up, human errors and the laws of physics and gravity are out of your realm of control. As much as you may want to have power over these things, you will make yourself crazy worrying about them, stressing over them, and trying to figure out how to stop them – all wasted energy.

There are situations where you can have influence, and perhaps persuade things to go in your direction, but you are still not in control. I want you to really remember this. I can’t say it enough. Let go of those things you cannot control.

Now, am I saying to give up control of everything? Is everything in your life uncontrollable? Quite the opposite! Sit down and write out all the things that are stressing you out or making you worry. Now, look closely at that list. What is on that list that you can actually control? Chances are most of the things on that list are out of your hands. Circle the ones that you can control. Write out the actions you need to take to make them better or take them off your “stress” list.

You are in control of a very powerful tool – you. That’s right. The only person in charge of what you do and how you react to situations, is you. Everything you do each and every day is based on choices you make. You can choose to act, choose to walk away, choose to sit idle, or choose to take control and live the life you deserve. The ball is in your court. Learn to let go of those things that are out of your control, and focus instead on better controlling yourself and your reactions to things happening around you. Take control, and get to your “someday.”