Focus On What You Can Control
You may not be able to control every situation, the outcome, or the actions of others, but you can take control over how you react, your perceptions, and what you choose to do about your own situation.
When faced with a challenging situation or person you have the ability to pause and decided how you are going to respond and react. You can control how you approach everything life throws your way and how you respond to and treat other people, including yourself. You can be hard, unforgiving, unyielding, and angry, or you can practice empathy, compassion, kindness, and understanding. You can take a step back and assess a situation and pause before reacting.
As you pursue your goals it is important to focus on and put your time and energy into what you can control and do your best.
TRANSFORM BEFORE YOU TRANSMIT
When facing challenges or feeling stressed out, it’s easy to transmit negative emotions onto others, to become irritable or impatient. It’s important in these moments to take a step back, pause, acknowledge how you feel, and transform your state of mind before you take things out on other people. It is also important to acknowledge that when others are stressed, they might be projecting onto you or others; you never know what is going on in someone else’s mind. This doesn’t excuse their behaviors, but it gives you an opportunity to practice empathy. The next time you are stressed or overwhelmed, take a moment to pause and transform yourself so you don’t transmit your stress onto someone else.
SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE
How you look at a challenge can determine if you see it as an obstacle in your way or an opportunity for change and growth. We all face challenges when we set out to meet a goal, and many things can happen that we are not in control of that can derail our plans. But, if you take a step back and gain perspective, you might be able to see the obstacle in front of you as a chance to reroute, change direction, figure out another solution to your problem.
Perhaps new opportunities arise that you were not aware of. Perhaps you change your approach and this leads to great results! Or, you gain clarification and inspiration to change your direction entirely and set new goals.
You can choose to make challenges work for you if you can see the opportunity for learning lessons and see obstacles as a chance for a new perspective or reroute your path to get to your end destination. It’s all in your perception and how you choose to handle each situation that arises.
