So you feel like you have lost control of your life… You are spinning like satellite in a decaying orbit… You haven’t crashed yet, but you know if you don’t get a handle on things, the moment when you do, the impact will be spectacular… Are you wondering how to get your life back on track? Do you struggle with the thoughts of seizing control and being back in command of your mind, your body and your time?
You first need to ask yourself this question:
What is control and what does it look like?
Does it mean having the proper balance between your personal and professional life, or is it more about having the skill to make the quick decisions? Control is defined differently by each person, and every once in a while, we let that control slip out of our hands.
Think of it this way… You are driving a long distance, say, going to Los Angeles and like every single drive you have ever taken, it is a matter of being in control of that car… Now it’s not that we have a death grip on the wheel, the radio off and a razor focus on the road. It’s more like we know how to drive, we are in control, sometimes we give over to cruise control when the conditions are right but the steering is ours, well, for now anyway… Like a lot of things in our modern life, technology will take the wheel out of our hands eventually and this analogy will become archaic…
Anyway…
So during this trip you will make literally hundreds of corrections to that wheel that will keep you moving forward… Some corrections are so minute that you won’t notice them… Others will be bigger, maybe caused by someone else swerving into your lane or a tractor trailer slowing on a hill and you will change lanes to avoid the impediment of your speed…
Then maybe, you might start to daydream… This is the moment I want to talk about… That moment when your vehicle drifts left a little too far and you have to correct it or crash… You know exactly what that feels like, the moment we go “oh shit!” and gently realign our vehicle to get back inside the lines… Driving is no time to be creative and the lines have a purpose and we all need to pay attention or we could get hurt or, in a lot of circumstances, hurt others around us.
See the correlation here?
We need to learn how to live our lives within certain boundaries that we have set and learn how to automatically correct ourselves when we have those slight drifts from our goals. Then, we need to discover how to discipline ourselves when drift out of our lane… You know, when you are on track to meet a goal of going to the gym every day for a month and on day 14 or 15 you really just don’t want to… This is a time to get you back on track by nudging your dumb ass gently back into your lane…
Now right at that moment, right before you say “screw it, I will go tomorrow because “I have been working hard for two weeks” or some other lame, completely untrue, *insert excuse here* reason, we have two options: to grab hold of it, or completely let go, which then results in a domino effect.
In your car, you drift right and for some unknown, completely thoughtless reason, you decide not to correct the drift… Then the domino effect…
Take Jimmy as an example of this domino effect.
Jimmy has a great job, works out regularly and has a good schedule that allows him to balance his life between self-care, his relationship, his interests and his work. He eats fairly balanced meals, and although he isn’t strict on his diet, he is consciously aware of what goes into his body. He has a loving wife at home, and also picked up writing as a hobby outside of his work because his writing makes him happy and the plans to possibly write a book excite him.
Now, Jimmy recently got thrown a project at work and it has been stressing him out a little bit. He’s been taking his lunches at his desk and it’s usually whatever he can find that is close, quick and easily eaten. His conscientious diet has become fast food. His attitude at home has become hostile and distant and Jimmy is distracted from his relationship. The daily writing has ceased and the plan to write a book now feels like a pipe dream. He has stopped going to the gym altogether. He tells himself, “I’ll make it up when this is done,” and continues to focus solely on the work project. Jimmy is drifting; he knows it and feels it is not enough to worry about. His life is on the edge of control…
Now a year has passed, the project has been completed for months. Jimmy is still eating fast food, has progressed to drinking every night because his relationship is suffering and has gained 25 pounds. He is unhappy, feels sick most of the time. His sleep has become broken and unrestful even when he naps for two hours and writing, exercise and self-care are distant memories. His relationship is in jeopardy and a vicious cycle of self loathing and guilt causes him to lash out at his wife. Jimmy has crashed and it is his fault entirely…
Now moral of this story is that when things start to feel out of control when we begin to neglect or ignore the things and people who matter to us, even if it’s temporary, we need to adjust ourselves immediately. When you have a goal and that goal disappears with a simple dismissal by excuse, you have lost control.
This is a hard life to swallow but like your trip to Los Angeles in your vehicle, you are in control of your journey through life. Yes, there will bumps in the road, break downs, delays, bad weather, and other idiots who have lost control you will need to carefully steer around… Side note, its okay to look at the accident as you go by, just don’t rear-end the guy in front of you while you rubberneck… It’s about understanding that once you let one thing slide, it’ll become easier letting other things go, which will cause you to feel off balance, disconnected and lost.
If this happens, there are things you can do to get back on track and live your life. I want to help here, that’s the whole purpose of my pointing out the obvious…
First take an assessment… Call it a Life Inventory… What do you have left? What do you need? This inventory should include all aspects of your life: career, intimate relationships and sexual health, family and friend relationships, emotional well-being, overall health, money, spirituality and finally, creativity. When it comes to getting your life back on track, it’s best to assess where you are at this present moment. Like any car accident, we now have to figure out if we can fix the vehicle or do we need to total the vehicle and find a new one. Is your old plan salvageable or do you need a new plan?
Secondly, it’s time to regain your self confidence and trust in yourself…
Self-confidence is the source of showing up every day and extension of that self-contract into the long-term. Showing up is more than getting up and going to work; it’s about showing up with an intention for the day. Intention is EVERYTHING… If I “plan to get in shape” I better have intention, because a plan without intent is the same as never... Although self-confidence may seem an intangible element to grasp, it’s far more within your reach than you think. Think about what gives you confidence, and find the things that correlate to that. If it’s feeling good about your body, obligate yourself to physical fitness. Find a program that you can maintain… Look for a hero to guide you… If your fitness Guru gets up at 0500 to work out, then get your ass up and workout… Stop saying “I wish I was like that” and fucking be like that… If its knowledge you want, learn from those you admire or reach out to an expert you would like to work with. Read, listen to TED Talks, watch informational documentaries, find a blogger you like and devour their work, take the knowledge and experiences of others seriously and if you admire them, then emulate them. We blaze our own trails but we didn’t invent this shit…
Once you have control over how you show up every day, you will feel more control in the other areas of your life. Once you gain control of your appetite, you will feel better and the reverse domino effect occurs. Exercise leads to better diet, leads to feeling better, leads to better sleep, leads to better mood, leads to wanting more…
The process is not permanent… Now we are back to the beginning of Jimmy’s story… Good life, balanced and meaningful…
In order to keep this thing active within us, we start our minute adjustments again and we have to stay vigilant and aware.
Here are a couple things to pay attention to once you regain that control…
Time management… Do not let that work project distract you from your personal goals. Work is important, work is necessary; however, when work commands your life, you’re out of balance… Make your personal goals priority. A scheduled workout isn’t an option; it’s on your schedule. When you have committed to writing a daily blog, it is not an option, it’s a commitment. If knowledge is your kick, then reading or listening to a podcast, watching a documentary or sitting down to talk to an expert better be on your list of “Shit I Gotta Do”… This is serious business and if you don’t take it as serious business, then your life belongs to someone else…
Let’s sum this up… In order to succeed at whatever it is you want out of this life, you have to pay attention, stay vigilant, make goals that meet the expectations you have, meet those goals, develop the discipline it takes to maintain this in the long term, make habits out of actions and above all, love yourself… Don’t be too hard or too soft on yourself. Acquiring balance is a lifelong lesson and the way we acquire this balance changes with major life events throughout our lives. Next time you feel like everything is happening at once, know that it’s also another opportunity to rebuild and get back on track. We all crash, we all do stupid things and we all fail. Take these failures as lessons and not definitive, goal ending catastrophes… If you had abs once, you know how to have abs, don’t act like it isn’t possible. If you had control of your appetite once, you know how… Stop acting like the things you used to do are out of your reach now… You cannot get back to where you were without first getting up and getting started…
Lastly, yes make a plan but for fuck’s sake, have intent, without both, you got nothing…
Love you all like a kid loves cake and I mean that…
See you tomorrow because I don’t have a choice about blogging… hahaha
90 Day Life Change Challenge update… Still 100% this week and mean to keep it that way… This morning was P90X3 Yoga and damn I feel good this morning…
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