You wake up every morning with a waiting list of propositions, questions, and requests to be answered. People, circumstances, and situations are vying for your commitment. Life can be heavy. And if you are not careful, you can give away the one determining factor to your physical, spiritual, and financial well-being, control.
Possessing control in your personal life is having the ability to determine your own emotions, responses, feelings, and outcomes. A person in control is consistent and dependable in their efforts. Most people would admit they desire to be in control, but desire does not always match up with reality.
After my wife and I had sold our house in 2009, we lost well into the six figures on our house. Momentarily I had retroactive thoughts about avoiding such a significant financial lose by making a wiser choice when buying the house originally, but that was destructive thinking and a path to losing control. You can't change the past or live in it and if you attempt to, you will forfeit control. Attempting to change the past leads to regret and resentment, a sign of lack of control. I couldn't allow myself to travel down that path. I needed to keep my control. I need to move forward release the past.
There are three different factors that determine your amount of control in life. They are experiences, environment, and expectations. If you control these three factors you will never lose control again. Admittedly though, everyone will momentarily have times of weakness and lose control. Just don't stay there long.
Past experiences are heavy hitters in the control game of life. When you replay moments in your past, you tend to conditionally rewrite the story. You relive a different decision, a different circumstance, or a different action. This effort leads to resentment, regret, and guilt. You are in essence convicting yourself of making the wrong choice. Leading yourself to believe you are a bad decision maker and not trustworthy in making future decisions. You will at that point release your control to someone else you can trust and believe in. Do not relive the past and play out different situations. You will lose control. Do not attempt to change the past, it can't be done. Simply remember the past and learn from it. When you do, you will never allow the past to steal your control again.
Current environments play into our ability to keep control or give it away. The current friends, jobs, status of relationships, and financial conditions will influence the lack of or possession of control. Needy and demanding friends will dwindle the emotional tank. Jobs in high stressful environments will steal energy. Bad relationships take up majority of thoughts throughout the day. Financially instability impacts everything in life related to money, which is most everything. When your current environment is unstable or in a bad condition, you are more vulnerable to losing control. Change your current environment or predetermine not to dwell in negative environments if you can't change it. The role current environments have on control is ultimately decided by predetermined convictions. Get ahead of the situation and dictate the outcome. Do not be the recipient of an outcome. Being the activator and not the reactivator will keep you in control.
Future expectations determine your amount of control. When you allow self doubts, limitations, and disbelief to erode your mind, you forfeit control to undetermined outcomes into the future. Swopping control for the anxiety of uncertain future results is a bad recipe for current well-being. The lack of control in future expectations leads to anxiety, worry, and stress. A simple flip of the switch in expectations or belief will redirect control back into your possession. Believe in your future. Be confident in what tomorrow holds and press into your success. Expect greatness and witness your control staying in the right hands, yours.
We have the choice to release control or keep it. Those who keep control are stable, trustworthy, happy, and successful. Your past, present, and future outlook will be the determining factor to your control. Have the dogged determination to protect your control and watch your well-being flourish.
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