How do we stay on course and avoid losing our focus?
I was digging through some of my books this week, as I finished my most recent book trying to choose my next one. I happened to start reading a book I already read, which happens more than I care to admit. I fell upon some various titles that reminded me of the reasoning several books were chosen and purchased. Many books I enjoy are specific to self-help and leadership topics. If you have been paying attention to my blog, you are not surprised by this. This week I decided to share areas I see, when we lose direction and focus more on what is out of our control. Much of what I wish to share are personal struggles I deal with from time to time. Maybe you are dealing with some of these issues too, and my hope is it will bring these to the forefront and allow you to deal with them.
Why do we dwell on things we can’t control? Much of our frustrations come from dealing with issues we have absolutely no control of. We may get frustrated with other people’s behaviors or attitudes. We get frustrated with small issues such as traffic or the weather. What we need to do in these moments is reframe the situation that brings us to our frustration levels. Is this an issue we should be wasting our time worrying about? If the issue in question isn’t an emergency, we should reframe it to see how we can work through it. People bring their frustration or drama and off load them onto our plates. Be very careful that someone else’s issue does not become an issue for you to deal with. This happens more often than we think. Stopping ourselves before we become frustrated in a situation and reframe it by breaking it down and see all the moving parts. Look for what we can and cannot control to see it in a new light.
What are we hearing and is it something we should or shouldn’t give value to? At times we will hear the critical voices, and those voices belong to others or ourselves. For those of you in a leadership role know we have critics. Part of being a leader is dealing with opposition to our plans we put in place. It can be said that some opposition indicates we are moving our organizations in a positive direction. If you receive opposition in every situation, you may have failed to build trust among the people within the organization. Some criticalness is healthy. We must weigh closely the opposition we receive to determine appropriate actions needed or whether we are listening to a very small majority. If the criticism we are hearing is our own internal dialogue, then we need to right that ship as soon as possible. We must never allow our own thoughts to create fear or lack of action. We need to tune out the voices of our critics sometimes, or we won’t achieve a thing.
How do we maneuver through issues when we hear critical voices and our frustration with things we can’t control? First, we must control our behavior. Sometimes our attitude isn’t the best and then we make half-hearted attempts at completing our tasks. This is frustrating for ourselves as well as those around us. Staying on point means controlling your mindset and your actions. Secondly, we must check in on our why. Follow our plans and keep our reasoning in the forefront. Only we can follow our dreams and achieve our goals. If we lose our zest for life, we lose everything. Have a clear vision of what you find joyful in your current situation. Lastly, we must focus on our intensions. What are we working towards? We must make sure we follow through and meet our benchmarks and achieve tasks that align with our personal goals as well as the goals of our organization. I love the phrase, talk your talk, and walk you walk. Make sure we do what we say we are going to do, and be true to our intensions.
What are you trying to control that you probably shouldn’t be?
What are you hearing and is it worth your time?
Are you staying true to your life intensions?
Stay true to yourself. Keep your focus on what you can control and always keep your attitude in check. Thank you so much for checking in this week. I hope you have a great week working on you. Best of luck as you work towards achieving your goals and dreams, all the while avoiding the things out of your realm of control.
Steven C. Bucks-Leading Conversations
