It doesn’t mean you’ve given up when you accept what you can’t change. It tells you what your options are & GIVES you the power to go in the best direction.

WHY LET GO of the Myth of Control:

Out of protection & seeking consistency, we judge change & decide whether it is “good or bad.”

If we think that we are the sole creators of change we don’t like, we give ourselves all the blame.

This is an unfair & unrealistic conclusion because we aren’t the sole authors of our circumstances.

No matter how much effort you expend, your circumstances don’t always result like you thought they would, which is why it’s so important to accept our current status – acceptance creates the ability to make something new.

Accept the things you cannot change AND reach your goals…

…or make new ones.  Being flexible is more important than any one goal because life often changes our ability to make it what we want.

We also don’t grow when our plans happen exactly as we thought they would.
After that, there’s a great feeling, but it doesn’t last that long & we don’t change that much.

We often blossom when it doesn’t work out.

When our plans turn out nothing like what we hoped we find out what we are made of & have the chance to heal & create more resilience & character.

We don’t create who we are through our planning.  We create who we are by how we PIVOT, how we accept what we can’t change & how we respond to those things we never wanted & didn’t plan on.

This is most of life.

When was the last time that your plans worked out exactly the way you wanted them to?  (If they often do, please wave your magic wand my way)

It’s dangerous to pin your self-worth on something you can’t control & truthfully, that is anything outside of yourself.

Relationships end, things get broken, money comes & goes, accidents occur.

When our worth depends on the randomness of life working in our favour, our confidence is always walking a tightrope & vulnerable to being knocked off with the next winds of change.

11 INCENTIVES to accept the things you cannot change:

1. You don’t control your outcomes as much as you think.  If your worth is anchored to your OUTCOME, it will plummet when your goals don’t succeed.

You DO control how you respond to life events & consequences (if you don’t know how connect with me. I can teach you how to create your belief in that power).

2. A wrong choice doesn’t exist (see: Make Confident Choices & Stop Stressing So Much ).  A decision isn’t right or wrong, it’s what was available to you then.  When you learn to accept yourself, you love your past, present, and future selves (& choices) equally.

3. A Circumstantial existence. You will have experiences you didn’t choose, but you can influence them. You can focus and act on the things you DO want regardless of circumstance & start to change how you feel about what’s already happened.

4. You’ll have more energy to focus on things you can affect & stop having painful reactions when you learn to accept today’s experience and take a healing approach to the past.

5. We change. Our wants, values & needs change & thus so do our choices. If we’re changing, we’re a growing, evolving human being. This is A GOOD THING.

6. We are flexible. We are the most adaptable creatures on the planet. Fact.

7. Life is far less predictable and more random than we like to think it is. We can set goals, work hard, do all the right things to get what we want & still not reach where we wanted to be. That’s not a reflection of our effort; it’s a fact of life.

8. We don’t change when it all goes our way.  Unlike plants, we don’t grow as much when the garden is sunny.  Like plants, we grow in the rain.

9. Life isn’t fair. Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. Those sayings we have heard all of our lives have real meaning to them. They were thought up for a reason: because people experienced them.

10. Your worth is not contingent on your circumstances.  It is intrinsic & stable.  Your worth doesn’t shift with shifting outcomes, and you can’t earn it.  You were born with it.  Concluding that your current circumstance reflects your self-worth is not a successful strategy for mental health because your current circumstances is always in flux.

11. Acceptance leads to trust.  When we accept, a sensation of openness happens within us.  We allow ourselves to entertain a new response that is in direct opposition to fear & resistance.

Why do we let our circumstances define us?

1. Need for control.
2. We want to believe life is predictable & that we can draw a straight line from A to B.
3. This creates a (false) sense of safety that our bodies & brains need.

Challenge those needs with this call to action:

1. The concept of FOMO signifies a lack of self-worth. When missing out on something hurts you, makes you shake or creates fear and an anxious reaction, you’ve fused emotionally with being included. You’ve fused your worth to an experience.
2. ONE STEP toward breaking this addiction:  Try missing out on an event and ENJOY what you choose to do instead.  Enjoy missing out.
3. Watch where you get VALIDATION from.  Is that a place you can affect?
4. If a circumstance is beyond your control, the way to GAIN emotional control/composure is through acceptance.  Acceptance releases the grip on the belief that you have to FIX something in order to be ok.  It’s much healthier for your mind to capitulate and make conscious choices about what you want to do next: I can’t change it, but I CAN accept it & decide what to do next.

YOUR VOICE:
What areas do you try to control your circumstance the most in?
Which ones make you the most nervous when you think of letting go of them?
Why?

More Related Articles:
How To Stop Stressing About The Future

7 Ways You Can Overcome Perfectionism.

Make Confident Choices & Stop Stressing So Much!

How To Process Your Negative Feelings.

All Articles in the Category:
Understanding Control