Three Areas You Can Control In Your Life

Life is unpredictable.  You often don’t know what’s coming next.  You may have planned out your entire week but many times things come up that force you to change your plans.  It’s important not to get upset when things happen that are out of your control.  You must stop spending so much time trying to control the things you can’t and start focusing on controlling the things you can.  Here are three areas you can control in your life.

Thoughts

You can’t control the events that happen to you but you can control your thoughts about them.  Your interpretation of an event is the first step.  It starts with one simple thought.  It could be a positive thought or a negative thought.  Either way, your thoughts are often determined by a previous experience in a similar situation.  It’s essential that you notice what thoughts you’re having.  Especially if they are negative thoughts.  Acknowledge what comes up for you and ask yourself if this thought is really true about the situation.  You may be jumping to the worst case scenario.  But, rarely does a worst case scenario happen.  Take control of the thoughts you’re having.  Choose to think positively and avoid going directly to the worst case scenario.  You are in control as the thinker of your thoughts.

Feelings

The thoughts you have trigger your feelings.  If you have negative thoughts you will have negative feelings of anger, frustration, jealousy, etc.  If you have positive thoughts you will have happy feelings of joy, gratitude, love, etc.  This is why it’s crucial that you start at the beginning and take control of your thoughts to ensure that they are positive.  No one likes to feel negatively.  When you change your thoughts, you change your feelings.  Make sure that you’re thinking positive thoughts.

Actions

Lastly, your actions are controlled by how you think and feel.  This is your response to the event that just took place.  You could react negatively by exploding and throwing a fit because you’re angry.  But, just know that hardly anything good comes when you act from place of anger.  Instead, react from a place of peace because you know that you’re in control of your thoughts about the situation.  There is no reason to overreact.  Your response should be calm because you know that what just happened is over.  It’s now time to think about how you will move forward and respond.  You cannot change the past events.  Take back control of the situation by choosing positive thoughts, feelings, and actions.

It’s important to realize there are things in life that will be out of your control.  Stop trying to control these things.  The only things that you can control are your own thoughts, which determine your feelings, and allow you to respond with action.  There is nothing more that you can control.  Even when you have everything perfectly planned out, something tends to happen that can cause your plans to change.  This is when you pivot and be flexible.  It’s outside of your control and the best you can do is choose your response.  It all starts with how you think about that situation.  You have the control over that thought.  The rest just falls into place after that.  Choose your thoughts wisely.  If you find yourself going down a negative rabbit hole then stop and regroup.  Choose to think positively because life feels better when you do.  The actions you take will be better because of that positive thought too.  Control what you can and stop obsessing over controlling what you can’t.