
Is your relationship with reality on the rocks?
Do you feel frustrated by the economy, the pandemic, the school situation, your business?
Are you feeling exhausted by, well, just everything right now?
Has reality got you down?
What if you loosened your grip on reality?
When I try to have too firm a grip on reality, I feel MORE out of control. But when I loosen my grip on reality, I feel MORE in control.
That seems counterintuitive, but I’ve seen firsthand how true it is.
Faith is what has helped me loosen my grip on reality. Faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. A definition of faith in Merriam Webster takes it a step further and says faith is a firm belief in something for which there is no proof.
I have faith that God is always working for my good. I trust that he is leading me on the path that he has designed uniquely for me. And worst case scenario, I leave this earth and join him in heaven. Not such a bad worst case scenario if you ask me. I know that there are tragedies in the world and bad things happen to good people. I’m not saying everything will be rainbows and daisies, but I trust Him that completely.
I’m taking what I consider to be a calculated risk, which is no different than the other calculated risks we take in the normal course of our life, whether it’s flying on a plane, driving to the grocery store, getting in the shower, walking the dog, going to the beach or the pool.
Because I have faith, I just choose to not use my time and energy, brain space for worrying about what could happen. I do believe that everything is subject to question, which is what makes it easy for me to loosen my grip on reality.
Here’s that belief model.
Let’s imagine that the circumstance is Truth. My thought about it is: Everything is subject to question. This makes me feel In control, which makes me NOT get mired in self-pity, NOT argue with reality, NOT stay stuck, but I trust and move forward. As a result, I don’t question my purpose. Instead, I live a meaningful purposeful life that I’m always in control of.
What do I mean that everything is subject to question? It means that everything is subject to interpretation. I get to question my interpretation. Ultimately, I get to decide what I believe about it. So that means that I create my reality. Because I decide how to interpret the data that I find in the world.
Every belief is an interpretation of some information that that I take in, process and decide what I want to believe. I have three choices in how I decide:
- I can decide by default, meaning that I can let my survival brain automatically decide for me.
- I can let the world around me decide for me, meaning whatever other people or other sources – the news, influencers, and so forth.
- I can consult my rational brain decide for myself based on the result I want from the situation.
When I decide for myself, that’s letting go of reality. I’m not keeping this tight grip on what I think reality should be. I’m taking in the information from the world around me and deciding for myself. I don’t control the information that comes from the world. But I do control what I do with that information.
When I try to control what’s happening in the world, I’m trying to keep a tight grip on reality. When I try to control things that are outside my control, that’s when things feel chaotic and out of control.
When I don’t try to control it, it doesn’t seem out of control, because everything I’m trying to control is within my control, so it appears to be working.
Statistically speaking, if you’re only trying to control what you can control, 100% of your evidence will point to you being in control. However if you’re only trying to control what you can’t control, most of the evidence will point to you being out of control.
That’s why you feel out of control.
The more you try to control things you can’t control, the more out of control you feel.
The more out of control you feel, the more you believe you have no control.
The more you believe you have no control, the more you try to control things.
And the cycle continues, just reinforcing the belief that you have no control.
This leads to inaction. Why bother doing anything when it’s out of your control? Besides, it’s painful to keep trying and even more painful to keep failing at it. Trying to control something that is out of your control is just setting yourself up for failure.
When you’re too busy focusing on the way things should be when those things are outside your control, it’s like a car without a driver. When you’re trying to drive other cars on the road, there’s no one at the wheel in your car; there’s no one controlling your care. That’s why your life feels out of control. That’s why it feels so chaotic. Because no one is at the wheel.
I can so clearly see how I was doing this in my corporate job, before I learned that I can control my thoughts and feelings, I would get so depressed, because it just seemed like everything was outside of my control. I was spending all my time trying to stay in control of things I had no control over, so I had no time left for the things I actually could impact.
And it was no comfort to me to hear (cue the condescending know-it-all voice), ” You can’t control everything that happens, But you CAN control how you react to everything that happens.” That was the last thing I wanted to hear, because I just couldn’t see how to do that.
But what I understand now because I’ve learned how to manage my mind. I’ve learned how to stop trying so hard to control things that aren’t my business and instead turn my attention to things I can control.
And this is what I help my clients do. I help them manage their mind to build a foundation that will stand up to all the doubt, insecurities and fear that come up in your business. If you’re a brand new coach, just trying to figure out your niche, offer and positioning, building this solid foundation now will help you avoid building on top of a shaky foundation, only to have it crumble and have to rebuild.
If you’re not a new coach or new entrepreneur that’s been trying to build your business, but you keep hitting roadblocks, you keep hitting limits, and not making the money you want, is it because you’ve never built that strong, secure foundation that will support the floors you’re building on top of that foundation?
Now is the time to establish that foundation if you don’t want to have to keep going back and shoring it up later or risk it crumbling under the weight of what you’re putting on top of it.
Not trying to control reality is one of the steps to building a solid foundation. When you build on top of what is under your control, you don’t risk someone or something ripping it out from underneath you once you’ve started to establish the business you want. How painful would that be?
Here are the things I found were key for me to stop trying to control things other than myself:
1. The only absolute truth is God’s word
2. Everything is subject to question.
3. I get to decide what’s true for me.
If you don’t have the reality you want, it’s only because there’s only some lie(s) you’re believing that are standing in the way of getting what you want. That’s what we work on together.
Learn how to go from feeling insecure, discouraged and stuck in your business to feeling equipped empowered and determined to sign MORE clients, help MORE people and make MORE money.
Because YOU are MADE for MORE!
I do have a couple of spots open in my 6-month 1:1 M.A.S.T.E.R. Money coaching program. When you’re ready to build a strong, solid foundation to support your business and the money you want to make, I encourage you to apply.