Believing that you have no control over your life can be a major source of stress and unhappiness. It’s difficult to see how to proceed when everyone else appears to be forcing the pace and pushing you along.

This may not be what really happens, although you may feel as though it does. It all depends on where you think the power of control lies. Some of you will feel that it always comes from the outside — from external forces and other people. For you, your life is only rarely subject to your control. Most of what happens relies on external events, other people, luck or fate.

For others, control is mainly an internal affair, driven by choice and personal beliefs. For you, there is a much greater chance to take things in the direction you want them to go.

Belief in external control

If you believe all control is in someone else’s hands — or in the hands of fate — you will likely feel that you have very little power over your own life. You have to submit to fate — wait and see what happens. “They” — whoever “they” are — are in charge. Nothing you do will influence what happens.

The result of this is a feeling of fatalism. Your goals will tend to be short-term. You look for quick results, look to others for guidance and leave the rest to a god or some higher being to sort your life out for you.

Belief in internal control

If your view is that your own efforts and choices affect what happens to you, then you will be concerned to make as much of your life as you can. Having this viewpoint will encourage you to look at whatever happens, even a setback, as a problem to be solved. You will likely want to use it as an opportunity to explore and see what you can make of it.

You won’t want to wait for the world — or fate — to bring you opportunities, or success. You prefer to go out and look for them. Believing in yourself and using your own abilities to improve your life means that you are able to achieve more. You are not so easily put off by setbacks and will practice again and again to make your life better and get what you want.

Choosing your viewpoint

No one is born with a view of where control lies. As infants, we are all equally helpless and dependent on other people. Sometime in our lives, we seem to pick up one of these two basic attitudes. Perhaps it comes from parents, perhaps our community or society. In any case, we choose to follow it and make it our own; it becomes so normal to us, we cannot see any other possibility.

Belief that you are totally reliant on others, the hands of fate, powerful forces, gods, big business, or whatever, may be extremely common, but it’s not at all useful. It leads to passivity, frustration, alienation, and feelings of hopelessness. The endless whirl of change and short-term efforts provides continual distraction, while leaving you powerless to effect where it’s taking you. Only by choosing to view your world as at least able to be influenced by what you do can you make the effort to try to improve your life.

It appears as a harsh choice, but life is a challenge and challenge can be invigorating. So — you need to make up your mind. You can give up control of your life to external factors and other people, taking no responsibility for errors and blaming others when things go wrong. Or you can claim your own power of choosing and do whatever possible to send your life where you want it to go.

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When times are good we are busy rushing from task to task, expecting the future to be better than the past and looking forward to improving our own circumstances. We are fixated on materialistic gains and living the good life in a culture which tells us that work is the only highly valued activity. So much so that we don’t realize how this same culture is sucking us dry and making our lives a misery of stress and anxiety.

The times are probably not so good for many of us now, and the future does not look so bright. Perhaps now is a good time to look at whether still striving hard to reach that “nirvana” of achievement and acquisitions is a good idea? Why do we do it? Is it because we don’t know what else to do? Is it because we are programmed by our culture? Whichever it is, when we are anxious about the future we forget to live in the present.

Better decisions

Rushed and hurried decisions will often backfire on you because they are made without due thought to the way they will work, how others will react to them and whether they are really answering the problem you have. They also backfire, because if you haven’t thought them through you will be unable to justify to yourself or anyone else the reasoning behind what you plan to do, and what steps you’ll need to take to keep your plans on track.

Taking time to reflect on the way you organize your life is never wasted. Working towards a goal which does not promise happiness or fulfillment is a mug’s game. All your efforts go towards the end result and you forget to live your life while you are trying to get there. If you are not careful, you’ll be old before you’ve realized it and your life will just have been one long struggle, probably towards gaining something you didn’t even really want.

Better priorities

If you cannot spare the time to enjoy those things you work so hard to achieve you need to rethink your priorities. Money, career, position - they all pale into insignificance when you realize that in the rush to succeed you have left no time for family, friends, enjoyment and even solitude - something which is priceless when you are worried and concerned with many doubts and troubles to think over. Try to give yourself time to “smell the roses.”

You need to move from the fast pace of constant striving to one of calmness and clarity. Rejection of the materialistic culture you’ve been striving for means a change in values and priorities. One of the most important aspects of living a good life is to pace yourself. If you do this, everything you do will be considered and well thought out. You’ll have time to collect your thoughts and quiet your mind before coming to any decisions.

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If you find yourself saying, far too often, “Oh no! It’s got me again,” this is for you. Many of us are tripped up by things that spark an emotional reaction. One moment we’re sitting, relaxed and content, and the next we’re being led by the nose by an advertising jingle, a newspaper headline, or some emotional slogan. If we want to lower stress—and stay in charge of our reactions—it’s a good idea to understand what catches us and why.

Throughout every day, we’re surrounded by baited hooks trying to snatch our attention and direct it where someone else wants it to go. Headlines on the television, articles in newspapers and magazines and advertising all play a large part in getting us worked up. We think we’re pretty smart about avoiding or ignoring them, but often our emotions kick in, our blood pressure gets critical, and we groan, “oh no, it got me again!”

Why you respond the way you do

What happened? Something grabbed your attention and set you going down a path you’ve followed all too many times before, and which you swore to yourself that you would never go down again.

The process is fairly simple, but that doesn’t make it any less aggravating. Somewhere in your mind is a trigger: a word, a tone of voice, a look, an idea. That trigger is connected to a habitual emotional reaction. As soon as you hear or see that trigger the reaction kicks in instantly. It feels as if you grab at it—and get soundly hooked—without any conscious choice on your part, until it’s too late.

Common triggers to watch out for

Everyone’s triggers are slightly different, but here are some common ones. It’s time to begin your search for the ones most likely to get you riled up and moving down the path of emotion rather than thoughtful response.

Ego. Many people are caught by their own sense of self-importance. They can’t resist getting involved, even in things of no concern to them or situations they know are difficult. It’s a form of showing off that usually ends in a mess.

Desire. When you want something — money, power, status, love — anything that even hints that it might be linked to what you want will grab you in an instant. Greedy people are some of the most gullible and easily-manipulated folk around.

Being a ‘savior’. Lots of people love the idea that they can step into a bad situation and clear it up. Show them someone in trouble and they can’t resist the temptation to step in and save the day. If it worked, it would be okay. Sadly, good intentions tend to be all they have to offer. When the rescue turns sour, you have two miserable people instead of just the one.

Gossip. This is one of the commonest triggers. It’s linked to many people’s love of drama. They aren’t so much caught by the information as by the image of themselves creating a great dramatic scene as they pass it on to others. They’ll burst through the door, shouting: “Hey! You’ll never guess what I heard.” People will be impressed—perhaps. Mostly gossip just causes misery and stress and marks out those who spread it as malicious jerks.

Boredom. When you’re bored, almost anything can catch you if it seems more exciting than whatever you’re doing: scanning e-mails, reading jokes on the Web, sending someone a silly message. So many people today are bored that anything promising excitement can draw their attention like a magnet.

If you find that some of these triggers apply to you as the major cause of emotional responses you dislike, then you should acknowledge your problem and every time one pops up try to ignore it and walk away.

Triggers like these are also used by other people to manipulate and gain control over you—don’t let them do that any more. Become your own person. Take time to sort out what triggers you must avoid and learn to think for yourself. Once you know what to avoid, it will get easier and you will find that you are gaining greater control over you life and getting much less stressed. There’s no need to go through life as a victim of your emotions. Taking charge of them will keep you on an even keel and lead to a more balanced life.

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When we look at how we manage our time, we normally focus on impersonal matters: prioritizing, organizing, various forms of distraction and loss of focus. These are all important, but can all be dealt with by training or some teachable techniques. There are also other thieves of time which are not so easy to deal with. These are personal behaviors which we use all too often without realizing how much harm they can do.

These behaviors waste time on a grand scale and they are notable stress producers. You can’t deal with them by techniques or skill training as they are too personal. The only way to deal with them is to bring them into the open and see them for what they are: bold thieves of time, attention, and — most destructive of all — peace of mind.

The causes of stress and disfunction

One major problem is caused by the habit of holding grudges. This habit digs around in what’s dead and gone and drags it out to corrupt the present. Actions are often taken with the express intention of paying off old scores. Projects may be derailed, much information withheld, much time and money wasted, just so that one person can take pleasure in seeing another’s plans fail or career harmed.

Another habit that consumes significant amounts of time and effort to no purpose is the habit of scoring petty points. Meetings are often riddled with this unpleasant activity, with hours wasted on reports, presentations, and sham questions whose sole purpose is to score against some imagined rival or competitor. They produce nothing of benefit. They waste time, increase stress, and make those people who are trying to do useful work, leave feeling angry and humiliated.

Then there’s the habit of jealousy: jealousy of another’s achievements, career progress, popularity, or even looks. If holding grudges is like some science-fiction corpse stalking the living, jealousy reminds us of vampire stories; of something that sucks the blood out of the living to sustain its own existence. Creative ideas get shelved, product improvements are reversed, customers deliberately lost, and false accusations raised with the whole purpose of feeding someone’s jealousy. A person who steals from an employer is labeled a thief. Someone who wastes resources through lack of ability will likely be fired for incompetence. But the jealous ones, who often destroy far more value and throw away resources on a larger scale to feed their obsession, too often get away with it.

Send such harmful thoughts and behaviors packing

Anyone who wants to cut their stress levels and increase their peace of mind should look into their minds and actions and remove all traces of these harmful habits. They are worthless, poisonous, and hateful. Treat them like the malignant diseases they are. Don’t tolerate them in yourself for another day, and do all that you can to discourage them in others.

You will find that a great deal of time will be saved. Costs will be lowered and the general atmosphere of your surroundings will be greatly improved.

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You’re probably feeling unsure about how to proceed with your life in these uncertain times. The road you chose to follow may no longer be open to you. The road you are already on may been blocked. What you thought of as a straight path, moving easily forward may now be broken up into side paths with many twists and turns. When you planned out what you wanted to do everything probably seemed certain. Now it is much more chancy. You will need to learn to adapt to suit the different circumstances.

Take care to make your own decisions

The people closest to you are probably also suffering uncertainty. Sometimes talking to others can help, but it can also mean that you may be tempted into pleasing them, rather than concentrating on what is right for you. You will be given advice and suggestions by all and sundry. Everyone will have their opinion of what you ought to be doing, where you should plan to go and how to get there. They are trying to help, but they will all have their own agendas — probably based more on their issues than yours. It is up to you to take a step back to look at where you are and to think how you can begin to regroup for an uncertain future.

The unexpected gift of hard times

Those closest to you don’t necessarily know you as well as they think they do. Even you may not know yourself as well as you think you do. It’s not until really big challenges arise that you have any idea whether you will be able to cope with them.

Will you be able to follow the road they lead you on, or will the challenge be too great? Only by trying to understand where you are will you be able to decide how to proceed. Straight on or maybe taking a turn to the left or right.

It may be that all those ideas you had for your future seem of little use now. But you should always try to focus your attention on what makes you happiest or what will give you the most satisfaction. Choosing a path to give you these things is not simple, but will help to sustain you when further difficulties arise. Later on, you will probably find that these tough times taught you much that you would never have learned any other way; much that you now see as invaluable experience for the future.

Don’t be afraid

Life is inherently changeable. Although you may think you chose wisely in the past, you probably find that now, through no fault of your own, your choices look to be poor ones. You should try not to dwell on what might have been and keep your mind open to changes, looking to see how you can capitalize on whatever comes your way.

Stay calm and don’t panic. Sometimes a change of direction is a good thing. There’s no guarantee that your first path was the only one that would work for you. Taking a side step and going a different way can also lead to an exciting and interesting future.

I don’t say anyone should welcome hard times — none of us enjoy being up against it — but, if you choose to put a positive slant on what is happening, it may turn out better than you expect, and much better than you fear.

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You are probably wondering how the present economic mishaps could have messed up your life so much, and feeling fed up and depressed at the loss of many of your dreams. Everyone else has problems too, but they are not your problems and you are really on your own when it comes to dealing with your situation.

Putting aside the big dreams and facing reality

Regrets are caused mostly by unfulfilled expectations—especially ones that you invested in heavily. If those go wrong, it hurts a great deal. You’ve not only lost something you wanted badly, you’ve lost the dreams as well.

There’s only one way forward from there: you have to learn to make the best of what you still have. If your situation now prevents you from following a path which you thought was your best route to happiness, then you need to step back, re-evaluate what you mean by happiness and see if you can still achieve some degree of contentment by another way.

If you are honest with yourself you will acknowledge that your life was probably not perfect before. You were always struggling with problems which needed to be addressed. Now you need to accept that whatever has happened isn’t your fault, but the way you respond to it can make the difference between living a life of constant regret or one where you appreciate and enjoy what you still have.

The process is what matters

It’s always tempting to assume that there’s a great answer to all your problems—if only you could find it. I suspect nothing of that kind exists. About the best we can do is keep working away at the things that bother us, allowing trial and error to proved enough answers to get started, then refining those more as circumstances allow. This process of puzzling things out allows you to keep working away at finding what’s right for your circumstances today. Tomorrow may be different. Worry about that when it comes along.

The 5 steps to minimizing regrets

1. Throw out all the preconceived notions of what your life should be like. Start from where things are now and don’t waste energy on criticizing your past efforts.
2. Take time to look at your life and decide what you’ve found matters most to you. What is there about things as they are that you really value? What would you most like to improve?
3. Choose the most important thing and work at finding some way you can make it better. Repeat with the next most important.
4. Go back and check over your values and priorities again. Keep repeating steps 1 through 3, then standing back and taking stock.
5. Keep your plans and actions clear and simple. Focus on one thing at a time, and give yourself time to see results before reviewing progress.

By concentrating on your deepest values you’ll find that many of the things you fought so hard to attain in your past weren’t really what made you happy. They were simply what society told you you should want. Be steadfast. You need to know what you’re doing and why. You’re not doing it for anyone else, only for yourself. The key changes you want to make to get yourself back on track need to be worked at over and over. There are no quick fixes. Removing regrets is mostly a matter of patience, keen focus, clear thinking and accepting reality instead of trying to fight it all the time.

Technorati Tags: dealing with regrets, coping with setbacks, how to change, self-help, self-development

The world is an unfriendly place right now, and there are many of us who are worried and dismayed at the effect if has on our lives. It’s all too easy to let yourself become overwhelmed with your problems, and then add to them by railing against the reality of the situation.

If you are able to accept what has happened, you will be able to distance yourself from some of the stress and anxiety you feel. Acceptance does not mean acquiescence. Most of you probably don’t feel at all like submitting to what’s happened. You’d like to rush off and do something, anything, to improve your situation and protect your self from any more harm. Sometimes, just being busy, even if what you do has little effect. gives you a sense of relief, but many times relief of this kind comes at the expense of quite thoughtful consideration.

Rushing into action—a bad idea

Rushing about doing things when you have no control over the outcome is a sure fire way to add to your troubles. It would be much better to sit back; to acknowledge what’s happened and wait and see how things pan out. Patience isn’t easy, but it’s much better than making badly though out changes when the world is in a state of chaos.

The other thing you should try to not to do is to give way to despair. Life is probably miserable enough without adding to your woes by piling up more and more anger against ‘them’—whoever ‘they’ may be.

When you feel really down and miserable it’s far too easy to blame others for the mess you’re in. Maybe it is the fault of someone else, the financiers, the big banks, Washington—the list goes on. But ‘they’ don’t even know you exist, so getting riled up about ‘them’ only causes stress to you. So forget about what’s past and avoid replaying your anger and frustration over and over again.

Live in the present, but look to the future

Anger feeds on itself and the more angry you get the more stress you’ll suffer. “It shouldn’t be like this. Why didn’t I have warning? It’s not fair!” You’ve probably said all of these and more in the last few weeks. But, every time you look at what’s happened to you and re-run it in your head, talk it over with others and join in their cries of hopelessness your anger rises to the surface.

Let it go. Even if you are partly to blame for your present circumstances, that was then, this is now. You can’t change the past. Concentrate on the present in positive ways. Act calmly and make time for family and friends you may have neglected. Appreciate what you still have and you will gain a more rational view of the world. In time, the future will be brighter.

Technorati Tags: coping with tough times, coping with panic, making the best of life, patience, slowing down

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea—
—especially if it’s the only one you have.”
~ ANON ~
 

Ideas are like tool kits. If you have too small a kit, you can be sure that you’ll never have the exact tool you need when something breaks down or needs repairing. Smart people keep a wide variety of tools handy, just in case. Smart people also keep their minds open to as many ideas as possible. This gives them the ability to step up to new situations and come out smiling.

I’ve always noticed that the least successful and most frustrated people have the fewest ideas. You can tell this because they keep using the same ones over and over again, regardless of how well they fit what’s needed. Like people whose tool kit has only one old screwdriver and a hammer, they haven’t any other choice. If whatever they have isn’t what they need, they do the best they can, even if that means messing up.

Learning from all the current election coverage

If you live in the USA, you can hardly escape the torrent of election ‘news’ on the TV and in the papers. Much of it is terrifically boring. Even the TV debates seem to change nothing, full as they are of prepared speeches and ‘talking points’. The candidates seem unwilling to do more than say what others have written for them.

That’s the trouble. Their words contain little more than the constant re-hashing of a few, old ideas. There’s nothing new, even as the economy tanks around us. It’s as if the candidates and their supporters have only a few ideas—mostly the ones they started out with, all those months ago—and have learned nothing since then, despite all the changes the rest of us can see around us.

Sadly, the electorate seems to act in exactly the same way. Many claim to have made up their minds months ago—or maybe they always vote the same way as their parents did, 40 years and more in the past. Either way, it seems nothing will shift their opinions. That’s not just sad, it’s downright foolish. If we don’t learn constantly from experience, what will we learn from? If we rely on what we already know all the time, change is impossible—however badly it may be needed.

The limitations in your life are tied to the limitations in your outlook.

If your life is dull, unsatisfactory and unexciting, the first place to look for reasons is right there in your own mind. What are you learning that’s new? How are you allowing change and fresh ideas to come into your mind? Where are you looking to find renewal and excitement?

Don’t rush to blame your job for being frustrating and boring either. It may be that way, but what have you been contributing? Have you done anything to change things? You may not be able to change the boss, the company or the job itself, but you can always change your own responses—and changing those may well start to change the rest. If you focus on everything except your own behavior, you’ll likely stay trapped and confused.

Some people will try to convince you that you can transform yourself overnight (if you invest in their product first). It’s not totally impossible, but I prefer to be realistic. You need to be patient and learn how to avoid your typical mistakes, build up your natural strengths and develop a sound plan of campaign.

How to stay on top of things

The best way to begin—to stock your mind with what you’ll need—is to read. I’m amazed how few people ever pick up a book, especially a serious one, or a business or technical magazine. If you don’t feed your brain, it’ll starve and wither away. People who don’t read are starving their minds. Do it long enough and the poor thing will become so weak it won’t be useful for anything. You may be walking around, but your mind will be more or less dead.

Don’t just read, think about what you are seeing and discovering. Ask questions, challenge opinions—nothing you find in any book is useful until you think about what it’s telling you.

Reading alone won’t transform your day or make you a success. I’ve met people who spend hundreds of dollars on self-help and inspirational books, attend seminars and training courses and never challenge what they have been told or even think about it much. They simply swallow it wholesale and wait passively for it to change them. Of course, nothing happens. So they dismiss that set of ideas and go buy another set. I guess that’s good for the authors and trainers, but it doesn’t do much for the person spending all that time and cash.

A well-stocked mind should be full of ideas, possibilities, options and questions—never just facts. It should be in a constant state of change and renewal. Like our bodies, a mind that doesn’t renew itself is already dying. It just doesn’t know it’s doing so.

Technorati Tags: thinking, ideas, options, keeping your mind alive, renewal, self-development

You can’t have relationships without trust, let alone good ones. Intimacy depends on it. I suspect more marriages are wrecked by lack of trust than by actual infidelity. The partner who can’t trust the other not to betray him or her will either drive them away or force them into some real or assumed act of faithlessness.

In the workplace too, trust is essential. An organization without trust will be full of backstabbing, fear and paranoid suspicion. If you work for a boss who doesn’t trust her people to do things right, you’ll have a miserable time of it. She’ll be checking up on you all the time, correcting “mistakes” and “oversights” and constantly reminding you to do this or that. Colleagues who don’t trust one another will need to spend more time watching their backs than doing any useful work. The office politics would make Machiavelli blush.

Think of all the additional tasks and problems people face that are caused directly by lack of trust. All the worry and tension as people look over their shoulders, convinced that someone, somewhere, is out to ‘get’ them. Companies keep voluminous records because they don’t trust their suppliers, their contractors and their customers. Probably more than half of all the forms we are asked to complete everywhere are only there because of a pervasive sense that “you can’t trust anyone these days.” If even a small part of such valueless work could be removed, the savings in time and dollars would be enormous.

Lack of trust fuels fear

We’re constantly put into a state of fear about the various ways that other people can abuse our trust: the ‘phishing’ scams, various kinds of identity theft, the concern that even a small piece of personal information might somehow be used against you. It’s making us all paranoid.

What about the work we load onto ourselves because we don’t trust people to do it properly—or at all. The checking, following through, re-checking and record-keeping. If you took all that way, how much extra time would you suddenly find in your day? How much of your work pressure would disappear?

I’m constantly amazed when people claim to be under constant pressure in their lives, yet fail to do the one thing most likely to ease their burdens: trust other people more. It’s not the pressure of activities that’s driving them towards some stress-related illness, it’s their lack of trust in anyone and anything. Is it any wonder they’re close to total burnout?

Starting a cycle of trust

It’s a common—and dangerous—assumption that you shouldn’t trust people until they ‘prove’ their trustworthiness first; that people have to ‘earn’ trust, not have it given to them without prior proof.

This is nonsense. Someone has to begin the cycle of trust by an act of faith. No one can ‘prove’ their trustworthiness until they are first trusted in some way. It’s like demanding that a plumber proves his or her skill while refusing to allow the plumber to touch any of the water pipes in your house. You may be able to produce some piece of paper as evidence of training as a plumber; there’s no certification that can ‘prove’ you’ve passed an examination in being trustworthy.

It’s no use waiting for the other person to make the first move. They’re waiting for you. It takes a conscious act of unconditional belief in that other person’s good sense, ability, honesty or sense of commitment to set the ball rolling.

Will your trust sometimes be misplaced? Of course. Life isn’t perfect and some people aren’t trustworthy. But will increasing your willingness to trust produce, on balance, a positive benefit? Will it make your life more pleasant and less stressful? I believe so. You have little to lose by trying.

Trust has to start somewhere. Why not with you? Why not today? Why not right now?

Technorati Tags: trust, relationships, responding to others, lowering stress