It can be surprising how little control we have over our lives. We like to think we are in control of ourselves, but in fact when we look at how our lives are we realise that for all the control we have over them it might just as well be another person living in our bodies.
In fact loads of professionals – teachers, doctors, therapists, counsellors, coaches and so on – depend for their professional success precisely on the fact that it’s often easier to control someone else than it is to control oneself.
I’m not talking here about the things which are genuinely out of our control or mainly so, but the things which are fully in our control – in theory.
Have a look in the mirror and yourself a few questions:
Is my body the way I want it to be? (I’m talking here about what you have made of the body you have been given)
Is my weight the way I want it to be?
Are my clothes the way I want them to be?
Is my fitness the way I want it to be?
Then look around your surroundings and ask yourself:
Is my house the way I want it to be?
Is my office the way I want it to be?
All these things are more or less directly under most people’s control. If they are not the way we want them to be then it’s because we are not acting as the person who is controlling our bodies and our environment. There’s someone else in there doing it for us – and not making a very good job of it either!
Time to reclaim control. Choose one aspect of your life to start off with – make it something small - perhaps your desk or your bookcase. Ask yourself “Is this the way I want it to be?” Don’t put up with it not being the way you want it to be any longer. Work on it until it is exactly the way you want it. You are in charge – why are you allowing it to be any other way than the way you want it?
Once you’ve made that the way you want it to be, choose something else and keep on like this until you have made everything that you have direct control over the way you want it.
That could be quite a journey!