Focus On The Things You Control
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself which of the things happening in your life are directly under your control?
A bystander yelling rude things as you walk by… a coworker failing to pull their weight… the weather being miserable for a couple weeks without any hint of sun.
These things are enitrely out of our control. What we do and what we say cannot stop them from happening. All we can do is focus on the things we do control. Our minds, our reactions, our emotions.
We can ignore the lunatic on the side of the street, we can inform our bosses of our coworkers shortcomings, and we can smile in the face of miserable weather, knowing that all things do pass eventually.
It’s important to be able to differentiate between the things we can change and the things we cannot for our own mental wellbeing. We can’t, for example, stop things from having happened in the past, but we can prime ourselves for those things happening in the future.
We can’t turn back time and never put on weight, but we can lose it and begin to focus on our health.
We can’t be taller or shorter, change our eye colour, or make everybody like us. We can’t force feelings out of others, but we can direct and do better with our own.
Let’s say you’re crushing on a co-worker. You make your move, you get shot down, and you move on.
You could be hurt, you could pine, you could feel foolish. But on the other hand you could respectfully take the rejection, and move on. It’s not your fault somebody doesn’t like you, and it’s certainly not a reflection on yourself.
That’s all the difference between a painful unrequited love lasting months if not years, and a casual decline of romantic affections that lasts a few seconds.
Recognise what is under your control and what isn’t. The actions of others are not down to you, but your own reactions are. We often have very little control over the external factors in life.
Things that happen ‘to us’ can very quickly become things that happen ‘around us’ if we learn to simply detach from them.
Once we recognise this we can better decide what to spend our mental energy on, and what to simply ignore.
Start asking yourself this question when faced with any obstacle, setback, or challenge: Can I control this? More often than not, you’ll find the answer is no. So instead, focus on what you do control. Your reaction to it.
This post was day 1 of my Daily Stoic Insights series, where every day I reflect on a core stoic principle designed to improve mindset, mental health, and productivity. To follow along and begin your stoic journey, you can pick up your copy of Ryan Holiday’s ‘The Daily Stoic & Journal’ here.
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