Taking on life

It is easy to feel overwhelmed and outgunned throughout our days. We have so much thrown at us that its can feel like you’re trudging through mud. This is a normal and totally understandable feeling. You are not alone, I have worked with athletes at the highest levels and pretty much every demographic out there, this feeling is universal.

Because I came across this so many times and saw how it affected everyone so intensely I came up with a exercise to help take back that feeling of control, the power over your day. I wanted to help the individuals I was working with feel empowered through stress not destroyed by it. Helping individuals see how much they actually control throughout their day and learn how to focus on that rather than the things life throws at them helps develop confidence and strength in their own independence.

This exercise is very simple. You will write down all of your controlled and uncontrolled variables.

Now, I want to explain how I came up with this before we jump right into it.

The conversation usually starts with something like how bad traffic was or how the coffee machine just didn’t work that morning. The client was a few minutes late or calling in to cancel the session all together because of these circumstances. Once this started the spiral was going to follow, it usually started with something small like the coffee machine and escalated into life “attacking” them. Their goals were unreachable due to life being a monster hidden under the bed, tourting them every move they made.

I get it. Trust me. Life is wickedly hard sometimes, however what we choose to focus on dictates our reality. We are a product of our mindset. We get to choose how we respond to things and this reality tends to escape us. We are so wrapped up in being the feeler of our emotions instead of the observer of our emotions. Once we are deep in the feels we can’t disconnect enough to see outside of it, like the old analogy “you can’t see the forest through the trees”.

This is because the feeling of being out of control is louder then the feeling of being in control.

This took me a little while to understand but once I did I was able to see it clear enough to start working through it. Like most issues we have, until we can see it as a whole, it is impossible to fix.

This is where listing our variables came to light.

I want to make sure we understand the concept so I am going to give plenty of examples.

Controlled Variables are as follows:

Making your bed, brushing your teeth, showing up on time, eating healthy, working out, cleaning up after yourself, reading, yoga, journaling, what you give attention to, what stimulus you allow in your life, who your friends are, how you respond to others, learning, love, how you speak to others, phone usage, cleaning your car, washing the dishes, laundry, etc. These are all things that no one can do for you, things you are totally and completely in control of.

Uncontrolled Variables:

People, car breaking down, kiddos reactions, dogs being dogs, traffic, work, extreme sickness.

Generally speaking, you will have more controlled variables then uncontrolled. This proves, beyond a doubt that you are the deciding factor in where you want to go and what you want to achieve. Life is up to you and how you choose to live it. You control 90% of your day. Focusing on the 10% or less you don’t is pretty silly once you see it written down.