Losing the Illusion of Control

Losing the illusion of control

What do you have control over?

Your thoughts.

Your actions.

And literally nothing else.

This is the level of control that you and everyone else on the planet has over their lives.

Now whilst this seems to be an oversimplification of things it really isn’t, I ask you now if there is anything else which falls outside of these two things that you have complete control of.

Now this isn’t to say that you can’t perhaps influence things with your thoughts and your actions but you are not in control of them.

Annoying drivers

This is my favourite example of how little control we have.

If you drive then I’m sure you’ve encountered a situation which has annoyed the hell out of you.

The most frustrating is when you’re stuck behind a slow moving car that’s driving well below the speed limit and there’s no place to pass them.

It tends to happen particularly when you’re already running late.

It’s the ultimate leveller.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re the world’s worst driver or if you’re Lewis Hamilton, your maximum speed is defined by that little old lady in the Fiat 500 in front of you.

So what can you do about her?

Well your thoughts aren’t going to change anything.

But your actions could, right? You could drive right up her arse, wave your hands around, beep your horn?

But you’ll NEVER be in control of her response. She could easily slow down just to piss you off, she could slam her brakes on causing you to hit her, or she could speed up as you desire.

You have no control over her actual response.

Just as she has no control over you acting like a dickhead behind her.

But why

You might be wondering why I’m telling you all this and hating on the idea of people having control.

The reason is simple.

The biggest cause of anxiety is people worrying about things which they have absolutely zero control over.

Have a think about the things which have upset you or worried you the most in the last couple of weeks.

Really drill down and work out how much control you had over that situation or circumstance.

You may well be thinking that you’re worried about something you did to upset someone and how they are acting now is upsetting you.

Well, shit, people mess up, people say stupid things, people do stupid things.

And maybe you did just this.

What control have you got about things which you’ve already done?

NONE, NADA, ZILCH.

If this is the case then all you can do is apologise and try to make it up to the person.

BUT again, you’re only trying to influence someone, you don’t have control over whether they’ll accept that apology or even speak to you again.

That is in THEIR control.

With modern dating how it is people match with complete strangers, maybe they message them, maybe they meet for a drink and then they stop messaging.

Ghosting as it’s known.

It’s a complete uncool thing to do, it’s rude, it’s childish, it’s frustrating, and it shows little or no respect whatsoever.

AND

It’s completely out of your control.

If someone has decided, for whatever reason, that they’re not going to message you back then what can you do about that?

We’re again into the realms of attempting influence but again multiple messages could draw them back in or it could push them away violently.

I hope you are beginning to get the point.

When it comes to worry and anxiety it is absolutely clear that as soon as we recognise that it is no longer in our control we let go of it.

Am I suggesting this is easy? No

Am I suggesting that this is probably the single most important thing to recognise in improving your life? Probably.

Are you on board yet?

So are you with me on this idea yet?

Yes, then please skip forward.

No, then please read below.

At the start of 2020 (AKA the year of the apocalypse) huge bush fires absolutely ravaged the Australian outback, destroying forests, habitats, people’s homes and killing dozens of people.

It was horrific.

How much did you worry about that?

Probably not so much, it’s a fire on the other side of the world.

You probably cared if you’re a half decent human being but worry is very different.

How much control did you have over the wildfires?

If you don’t say none I’m going to jump out of the screen and slap you.

Think now again about the last thing that worried you, did you have any more control over that than you did Australian wildfires?

No.

And yet you worried a lot more about the thing relating to you.

Let’s be clear you’re perfectly entitled to CARE a lot more about the thing relating to you but it’s unhelpful and illogical to WORRY about it more.

Worrying and Caring

“Oh right, it’s illogical to worry, I’ll just stop that then” you’re saying sarcastically.

Like I said, I’m not suggesting that just doing all this is easy but it is necessary if you want to feel differently about things which if you’re reading this far I will assume is now true.

I’d like you to do the following.

1. Think of something in your life that is really worrying you.
2. Write down all the things that you have full control of relating to this.
3. Do all the things that you can do.
4. Stop worrying.
5. Start caring.

With fairly direct and simple self-talk we can actually directly influence how we feel.

The very action of telling yourself or someone else that you’re worried about something will actually induce that physiological feeling of worry within you.

You’ll actually be causing yourself to have a twisted stomach, nervous sweats, increased heart rate and breathing etc etc.

What if instead you said “I care about ______”

Caring is a much more positive feeling, it has a better “energy” to it. Caring brings about a sense of warmth and security, it is just as strong an emotion as worry but without all the emotional baggage attached!

Maybe again this sounds overly simplistic but I ask you this.

If you’ve done everything that you can do then what is there left to do?

If you’d like to explore this idea further or just want a free exploratory chat with me about where you’re at in life and what I can do to help you then click below to book in with me.