Focus on What You Can Control
This week's post is inspired by a quote from legendary basketball coach John Wooden. During a 12-year period as the head coach of the UCLA Bruins' basketball team, Coach Wooden led them to ten NCAA national championships, including a record seven in a row. During this stretch his teams won a NCAA record 88 consecutive games. I think it's fair to say that coach Wooden knew a thing or two about leadership.
Coach Wooden said, "Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."Focus on what you can control
As leaders we’re often faced with problems. When we try to brainstorm solutions, either in our mind or with our fellow club officers, we fall into the trap of finding problems with every proposed solution, why we CAN’T do what’s being suggested.
Focusing on what we can’t do makes the problem seem even more difficult to solve. After a while you begin to think that it’s unsolvable.
But what if we change the dialogue just a little? What if we ask, and focus on, what we CAN do? One thing that happens is that stress levels reduce. If you’re focusing on what you control, you don’t worry or stress over what you can’t!
Another thing you can do to reduce your stress is to go through all of the possible negative outcomes and figure out what’s the worst that can happen. Is it something you can live with? Stop worrying about it then. Is it something you can’t live with? What can you do to mitigate the outcome? Can you live with it then? Good – move on and stop worrying about it.
Research has shown that 855 of the things we worry about – never happen. And when they DO happen – 80% of people surveyed said they handled the outcome better than they thought they would.
Stop worrying about what you can’t control. Focus instead on what you CAN control.
As leaders we’re often faced with problems. When we try to brainstorm solutions, either in our mind or with our fellow club officers, we fall into the trap of finding problems with every proposed solution, why we CAN’T do what’s being suggested.
Focusing on what we can’t do makes the problem seem even more difficult to solve. After a while you begin to think that it’s unsolvable.
But what if we change the dialogue just a little? What if we ask, and focus on, what we CAN do? One thing that happens is that stress levels reduce. If you’re focusing on what you control, you don’t worry or stress over what you can’t!
Another thing you can do to reduce your stress is to go through all of the possible negative outcomes and figure out what’s the worst that can happen. Is it something you can live with? Stop worrying about it then. Is it something you can’t live with? What can you do to mitigate the outcome? Can you live with it then? Good – move on and stop worrying about it.
Research has shown that 855 of the things we worry about – never happen. And when they DO happen – 80% of people surveyed said they handled the outcome better than they thought they would.
Stop worrying about what you can’t control. Focus instead on what you CAN control.
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