What do you need to focus on today to ensure that you have an outstanding tomorrow?

Where you are today has been determined by the decisions you made yesterday and the day before and so on. Your today has happened because of the ‘Power’ you gave it yesterday. Your ‘Power’ is the culmination of your thoughts, feelings, emotions and what you tell yourself.

So what needs to change today to make tomorrow the most outstanding day? What things do you need to bring into your world today to create the tomorrow that you desire?

Are you going to wake up tomorrow morning and say to yourself,

“I have so much to do today. I have to do this and this and this and by the time I’ve done all of these things, I’ll have no time for the things I truly want to do. There are so many demands on me right now. Life sucks.”

What if you were to wake up tomorrow morning and say to yourself,

“Today, I have a fair amount of things to do, but, if I concentrate on getting the ‘have to do’s’ done first, then I will be free to do the things I want to do later.”

How much different would it feel if you were to change the way you talk to yourself? For example:

“It’s too hard. I can’t do it.”

Change it to:

“It’s a challenge, but I’ll give it a go.”

What we focus on is what we will find evidence of, to the exclusion of everything else. We can only experience what we search for. So, why not search for the positives in your life. Give the positives all the power you can and take the momentum away from the negative. You might be surprised by the result.

I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my life when my world has felt completely out of control. Like the whole world is conspiring to see me fall down. If this is how you’re feeling right now, then have hope. I’m going to share with you the strategy that I use to take back control.

Feeling in control about our life is one of the fundamental needs of human beings. We need to feel that our world has a sense of order and purpose to it so that we can operate effectively. We feel confident and comfortable which allows us to relax and take it easy. We sleep easier and our stress levels go down.

When that sense of order is missing, we suffer all sorts of afflictions, such as stress, anxiety, we become teary and can’t manage as well as we can under normal circumstances. Then we begin to beat ourselves up by talking harshly to ourselves and putting ourselves down. Sound familiar … or maybe it’s just me.

It’s been said that we are in control as much as we are out of control. The only thing that changes is our perspective. When we see ourselves as in control, we are confident and calm. When we are out of control, we see the opposite.

Control is a funny world, isn’t it? It conjures up all sorts of amazing images in our mind. Images like the ball and chain, lord and master, king and peasant. This needn’t be the case. I remember when I first began my training as a Coach, at our first weekend of training I asked my trainer … “How can we be out of control when there is so much going on in our life that requires us to be in control?” This is what she told me …

The more you are able to learn about yourself, the greater the amount of control you will have. The more you come from a place of knowing rather than reacting, the more confident you will become.

So, here are my steps for gaining control …

Step 1:   STOP!

Simply stop what you’re doing and take a breath. We often scramble to take back control and find ourselves turning in circles. Stop what you’re doing, take a deep breath, close your eyes as you let it out slowly. This will allow you to regain your composure.

Step 2:  ASK A BETTER QUESTION

Ask yourself, what’s really going on here? If I were to take away all of the emotion, what am I left with? This will give you greater clarity around the situation and allow you to see it through new eyes.

Step 3:  WHAT CAN I OWN .. WHAT CAN I DISCARD?

Write a list of all the things that are going on right now. Then, next to each item, mark it with an O or a D. O is for the things that you can control. D is for the things that you can’t control.

Step 4:  WRITE A NEW LIST

Write a list of all the items you have marked with an O. These are the things that you can control. Put them in order of priority and voila, you will feel more in control. You can then put your mind towards ticking those items off your list.

Give these steps a go and see what happens.

Remember, you can only control yourself and your actions. You can’t control other people and what they do or don’t do. Put your energy into yourself and achieving the outcome you want.

Over the last 20 years or so, our society in general has been on a quest to obtain stuff. Bigger houses. Flashier cars. Debates have been conducted in many staff rooms on which is better – LCD or Plasma TV’s. We don’t go to the Gold Coast for our holidays anymore. We go to Thailand, Bali, Fiji.

We are trapped in a consumer cycle of buy, buy, buy, which means we have to work, work, work. The more stuff we accumulate, the harder and longer we have to work. We have credit cards, interest free loans, buy now pay later schemes which make it even easier for us to buy more stuff. We have become trapped in a system that feeds us externally. The problem is that this is only a short term solution.

More and more people are realizing that all this stuff that they are accumulating isn’t really making them happy. While it feels good at the time to buy these things, it doesn’t take long for that feeling to turn into stress when we get the credit card bill in the mail. Then we ask the boss if we can work some overtime and next thing you know your average work week has been extended. That means there’s even less time to enjoy the very things that put you in this situation in the first place.

AAAHHH!

Our problem is not the things we buy. We’ve become addicted to the feelings associated with buying stuff. We walk out of the store with this humongous TV which is so big that the family have to find their own way home from the shopping centre because they can’t all fit in the car. Then, we arrive home with our new TV and spend the afternoon rearranging the entire lounge room to fit it in and then we finally get to sit down and actually watch it, feeling fabulous. We feel elated, excited, proud. We have a ‘look at me’ moment. It’s everything we’ve dreamed of. Now, because we want those feelings again, we make more purchases. It’s a cycle. Buy it, feel good, buy it, feel good …

We’re starting to realize that once we have bought everything on our list and we really don’t want anything else, that we’re left feeling empty. We’re starting to shift from an externally driven validation to an internally sustainable foundation. We’re starting to realize that nothing of the senses will satisfy the soul. Nothing we can taste, touch, smell, see or hear can fill the void that is within us. If we do happen to find something that satisfies the senses, it only tends to be short lived which means we’re left wanting for more.

If you were to take away all of your stuff, what would you be left with? Scary thought? How would it feel to know that you didn’t need all that stuff to know who you were? That who you were came from a place inside of you which is full of potential and possibilities.

The lesson here is that the more stuff you ‘need’ to buy, the greater the need for internal fulfillment. So, next time you’re looking to purchase something, ask yourself this: “Am I buying this because I truly want it or is it because it will make me feel better?” It is from that space that you can really make a choice to buy because you want to, not because you’re trying to fill a need.