Personal Development

Focus on what you can control…ignore the rest

By Thomas ⋅ February 4, 2009 ⋅ Print This Post Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment
Focus on what you can control…ignore the rest Focus on what you can control…ignore the rest

Some time ago I realized something that changed my life : I cannot control everything.

I used to like to control every part of  my life. I mean I needed to control every situation, every given moment, even control people (bouhouh)… Basically I leave nothing to chance, I prepare for every meeting, every trip, every second. Or at least I tried.

Being willing to control your life is great….

I always thought I could control my own life, my destiny. I don’t believe in a superior authority that decide for me and make my life.

This is a very interesting point and the first step towards a happy living but an extreme behavior it’s not good neither. Some control is OK, too much is not.

…but stop to try to control everything.

Trying to control EVERYTHING is a huge waste of energy. There are elements you have few or no impact on. You cannot control the weather, you cannot control others thoughts and feelings, you cannot control others actions…

Rather than focusing on most things I cannot control I redirect my energy on the few I can control: I can control my thoughts and feelings, I can control my actions and choices…

When I am in a tough situation I asked myself the following question :

Is there something I can do to improve the situation?

  • If the answer is YES I figure out what aspects I can control and work on them.
  • If the answer is NO I stop worrying about that. As a result I don’t think anymore about issue I have no impact on, my mind is free to tackle real problems I can control.

I am not going to talk about percentage today. Maybe the part of “controllable items” represents 20% of my thoughts or actions (maybe more, maybe less). In fact I don’t know and I don’t care. What I know for sure is that in focusing on things I control I can have a huge and beneficial influence on my life (and on others’ I guess).

Next step would be “How to ignore difficult situations?”…This is going to be the topic of a next post.


Creative Commons License photo credit: *MarS

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