I work with leaders. Leadership comes with a lot of responsibilities and expectations and this can create a lot of anxiety. If you felt like you had 100% control over all your desired outcomes, how would that change your outlook?

Control is a concept. It’s an idea, an illusion. Luckily that means, we can control how we feel about it (control that control!!). We can sort out the elements of our illusion and we can shift our mindset about what’s left. Too wishy washy? Here are some concrete ways to deal with the not-so-concrete:

Unclutter your mind:

Make a list of all the things that you are working on/thinking about and that have you concerned/worried/stressed

Sort that list into two columns:

What you can control
What you can’t control

Obviously (though not necessarily what we practice), we want to direct our focus and our energy to getting strategic about the things we can control and come up with an actionable plan that results in high performance.

AND, to have the energy and motivation to do that, it is most effective to process the things we can’t control.

Would it be more logical to immediately turn to getting into action about the “can-do” things and ride the positive wave of momentum? Ideally, yes, BUT unresolved stuff tends to be ever-present in our subconscious, just below the surface, and to be in constant resistance to those things leaches our energy and eats up all or most of the precious willpower we need to be in powerful action and high performance.

So look at your list of what you can’t control and turn to our favorite practice of shifting all these naughty uncontrollable outcomes into processes. For example:

Making my staff perform better vs coming up with 3 inspired ideas to give my staff new tools to raise performance
Getting the board to buy into funding the new project vs coming up with a list of 10 business benefits that speak for funding the project
Have better meetings vs learning new practices for building agreements with my staff

You get the idea…

This will help a lot. Invariably, there will be some things left on that list that, no matter how you turn it, you can’t put into controllable terms. You have done your very best and it is still out there, looming over you. Now what?

Letting go. It’s so simple. How? Hopefully you have a technique already that helps you shift your mindset so you can let go and let god, or whoever takes care of those things for you.

My Practice for Clarity process takes care of this for me every time. If you would like to find out more about it, please email me and we can set up a time to help you get to clarity and high performance.

And what about the things that we can control? Next time!!!