How to Take Control of Your Life
Life is scarcely what happens to you and majorly what you happen to do. It is quite normal to experience a feeling of being stuck. This is the feeling that there is absolutely no way out of a situation. Have you ever harbored the thought that happiness and success were reserved for people other than you?
It doesn’t have to be that way. You can easily eliminate the external obstacles and conquer the anxieties that are holding you back. Achieving full control of one’s own life may pose an unfathomable mystery. Fortunately, there actually exist simple yet straightforward steps to make this happen.
However, this can only be achieved if you are prepared to do the work while maintaining an open mind. And if you are ready to turn a new leaf and let go of things that hold you back, you’ll notice that life will step up to meet your needs.
Acknowledge your current situation
Sometimes, when matters get on top of you, all you may want is to hide and hope that your problems will disappear on their own. At the very least, although you may not have to face them, hiding from your problems and challenges won’t solve them. Therefore, you need to relocate within yourself and find the courage to acknowledge your situation.
Since knowledge is power, you can’t fix things unless you first understand what is going on. By arming yourself with information on your current state, you are already one step closer to be where you want to. Although frightening at first, you will feel liberation when you get the exact grip of whom and where you are. It is not half as bad as you had thought it to be.
Avoid putting conditions on your happiness
We have been raised to believe that the world will reward us in some way, and by doing so, it will make us happy. We believe that happiness will come naturally only when we; lose weight, have a new car, get promotions, become rich, or when our lives resemble the celebrities, we see on Instagram and TV. However, this is all backward. In a real sense, by placing conditions on our happiness, we prolong our sorrows by holding a notion that happiness is only achieved when we have certain things. Rather than having the ‘we will be happy when’ notion, we should instead embrace the ‘being happy and then…’ notion.
Step out of your shell
All too often, fear tends to be the leading factor in holding people back from doing what they wish to do in life. By stepping out of your shell regularly, you will get the chance of facing your fears, thus be inured to fear. As a result, you will be able to break free of the self-imposed constraints created by fear.
Don’t worry about things you can’t control
Life holds numerous things that are way beyond our control, yet we attach so much essence in trying to influence these things. Sadly, this will, in most cases, lead to frustrations. We become angry, bitter, and upset with life that we convince life isn’t fair and ourselves that bad things are bound to happen to us always. The secret to beating this is by understanding how other people behave, the national lottery and bets, the passing of time, death, and pretty much every other thing are not on us.
Here is where the paradox lies. The more we focus on things that we can control, the more the other things beyond our sphere of influence will start falling into place. What you do is about you – everything else isn’t.
Seek emotional independence
Have you ever found yourself in a situation of lasting anger because someone we know has a better life than you? Ever felt resentment for someone because they never send a birthday card or never wants to go out with you? Well, prepare for this; it’s never about you; get over it. So, cease taking it personally when someone achieves something that you have not. Similarly, don’t seek credit for everyone’s success.
Trust me; the results are, as we know, disastrous. But here is what you can do. Stop caring. Let it go. As long as you are happy on your own, someone’s happiness has nothing to do with you. Moreover, people are busy leading their own lives, so if you get emotional over minor things, you’ll be the one to get hurt.
Stop seeking validation, permission, approval
Of course, everyone wants to be liked by others. Likewise, we want to get as many Facebook likes as possible, as well as having everyone nod in approval when we wear a new outfit to work. But too often, we tend to change what we do, how we do, how we live or even refrain from making our own decisions unless we get thumbs up from others. Most of us live according to what we think the values of others are. Just to nail it, here is one thing. They are not living your life. Also, as long as you live according to what you think is pleasant to others, you will not be living your life either. Who then, do we leave to manage your life? And by not living your own true life, you will, in most cases, and up living inauthentically.
So, stop worrying about what they think, and stop seeking their opinions and approvals before acting. Learn to make your decisions without permission from others. And before long, you will notice a growth in your confidence, become more decisive, and have more ownership as well as power over your situation. Ironically, by stopping seeking everyone’s validation and permission, that’s most likely when you’ll get it. But by then, you might not even need it. Don’t live to impress.
Conclusion
Although this may seem like a tall order, you needn’t have to try all six of these things at once. Surprisingly, you can attain radical change by attempting one or two habits at a time. However, note that I am in no way propagating to make a perfectionist out of you. Neville Nelson, a seasoned writer, poet, and blogger, notes in his book that perfectionists, unlike high achievers, are never happy in the real sense. Yes, assuming total control over your life takes work and takes time, but not as much of either as you think.
