What is control? Why is it so important to us? Spoiler: It’s overrated.
If you hear about someone losing control of their car, the result is usually a crash. That’s not the type of control we’re talking about.
We’re talking about the control where you feel you have to have it work out your way. Your way or the highway.
When you lose control, you free yourself from constraints that limit you. You can still get what you want, it just might happen differently than you expect. Don’t many things happen differently than you expect?
It’s okay to lose control. Really, it is. We say that as if we are experts. Nope, not even close. We’re practicing the fine art of losing control all the time.
We’re learning it’s okay. We give ourselves permission to let go. To stop holding on so tightly. To lose control.
It’s working out for us and we know it will work out for you. Here are three really good reasons to lose control.
Reason #1 – You can be present
Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone who is texting someone at the same time? The awkward pauses. The need to repeat. It’s not much fun.
To have a meaningful conversation both of you must be present. You must actively listen and interact. If they are busy thinking about the person on the other end of the text, they can’t be present.
It’s the same with control. If you’re trying to figure out what to do the day after tomorrow when A, B, and C happen, you can’t actively engage with what’s happening now.
Now is your point of impact. Now is the only time you can act. You can plan for tomorrow, but don’t try to control it. Let tomorrow come.
Reason #2 – Possibilities show up
When you let go of control, you let go of how you think things are supposed to work. You take your eyes off the “how” and focus on what you want instead. By focusing on what you want, the how becomes irrelevant. Does it really matter how it happens? Do you need to be right all the time? Do you need to know everything? Banish your expectations.
The other day, I was putting together a document. It’s a tool to help figure out what to choose. The idea came about when someone said, “thanks to your book, I now know I can choose, but how do I get started? How do I choose what to do, when I don’t know what to do?”
That got me started researching and thinking about the 5 steps to make better choices. Several hours into writing, it started to feel like a cookie-cutter approach to making good choices. Not what I was looking for.
So, I took a step back and chose to lose control. I chose to go more with my feelings, than with research. And just like that, it dawned on me how to write it.
If I stayed focused on getting it done, I would have completed it, but it would not look at all like it does today. By letting go of my control, I was able to see possibilities that were invisible before.
Do you have things you want to accomplish? Are you open to how they happen? How much of your time do you think about how you are going to achieve it? Try letting go of the how and relax into knowing it will be there.
Once you know it will be there, Get up and do something today to begin to make it happen.
Reason #3 – You realize you’re not in control anyway
This is the big one.
When you really let go, you realize things continue to move forward without your influence. Look at the way the sun rises, or the way water flows around a bridge in a rushing river. All those things carry on without any control by you.
You may be thinking, those things don’t need me, but things around me do! How am I going to pay my rent, get a promotion, or find my love?
There is so much that goes on in this world that we know nothing about. We grab hold of a tiny fraction of what is occurring and claim we made it happen. Just think about it for a moment. How much did we really contribute to the bigger picture?
Losing control is a good thing. It doesn’t mean you abandon plans or fall victim to random chance.
Losing control means going with the flow by paying attention to the flow – and acting now based on the next thing to do.
We would like to hear how you gained more out of your life by losing control.
