Things are going to happen around you and to you that you have NO control over and that will affect your business & your life in negative ways. If you spend your whole time focused on these things then thats a sure way to limit your growth and make you extremely unhappy. You will feel a sense of helplessness, that there is nothing you can do, becasue the world is against you. Instead, focus on the things you can control, thats what we are diving into to day, with a few lessons from the golf course too. Enjoy!

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In This Episode You Will Discover:

• Why you shouldn’t spend your time focused on the market conditions or what your competitors are doing.


• Why focusing on things out of control will leave you feeling unhappy


• What are the things you can control that will increase your happiness


• Why you should only focus on the next thing and nothing else.


• And more

Focus On The Things You Can Control To Be Happier & More Successful

Today we are going to be diving into why you need to stop focusing on things you can’t control, and why this is key to your success and happiness.

As always you will be able to get the full show transcription and all the link and resources wI mention over at level10living.co.uk/45

Success and happiness are dependant on you focusing on the things you can control.

Let me explain….

Lessons From Golf

I am learning golf at the moment, actually i think thats a game that you never stop learning, just as you start to get better it totally humbles you. One week you have a great round, the next week its like you have never played before.

I could blame the course, the weather, my clubs, the length of the grass, the speed of the greens, the other players, the people who are playing slow in front of our group meaning we have to wait a few minutes here and there, the random tree that ball struck, yes I spend time in the trees, I mean I could find literally hundreds of reasons, none of which have ANYTHING to do with me, for why I didn’t play well, and I would be miserable complaining about them all. And that’s what soooooo many people do. They walk round the course moaning about why they are having a bad round of golf.

But actually none of that stuff is in your control. In fact whoever you are playing with has EXACTLY the same circumstances, and they had a freaking great round. Why do they deal with it better?

Because they focus on the things they can control….

It’s windy – you can’t control the wind… but if the wind is going from left to right you can aim further left than normal if you want it to end up in the middle.

It’s raining – you can’t control the rain, but you can take an umbrella, waterproofs and a towel – dry your grips before swinging – key lesson I have learned in the past.

I can control my swing, I can control the line of my putts, I can control my thoughts as I walk up to each shot, I can control where I aim.

All I should focus on is the next shot. Not the last shot, not what I have to do in 3 holes time, the shot I am about to take. Thats all I can control in that moment.

You can choose to bitch and moan or you can choose to focus on the actions required to win.

Which is going to give you more chance of success?

You Can’t Improve If You Blame External Circumstances

Also, if I just sit there and blame the external factors for why I was rubbish, I am never going to learn and improve. I won’t go practice, because it’s not me, it was the wind, and next time it will be something else. If I go, you know what my putting was a bit rubbish today, let’s go work on that, I will go away and improve.

This about having a Growth Mindset, as Carol Dweck outlines in her book, Mindset. Thats a great read. Go grab it if you haven’t read it.

What About Business & Life? What Can You Blame?

It’s the same in business and life.

I hear people moaning about the economy, that another business in the same industry has set up just down the road,

Will the economy affect you? Will the other business setting up affect you?

YES!

Is there anything you can do about those things …. NO!

The business is going to set up down the road whether you like it or not, the market is going go up and down whether you moan about it or not.

And if you focus on these things and blame them for all your misfortune, you will feel a sense of helplessness. You feel like there is nothing you can do. And so you will sit at the pub, or on the sofa moaning about how everything is against you.

So let me ask you this…

What Can You Control?

Your actions!

How you and the business deal with the conditions.

Your products, your marketing, your sales, your customer service.

You can control your mood, how you motivate your team, the relationships you develop etc.

Like golf, in business you will have to adapt to the different conditions.

If you don’t adapt then you will disappear.

Those are the things happening AROUND you! But what about things happening TO you!

Will bad things happen to you? You freaking bet! Is it fair! Not a chance! But they will happen.

You can’t control the things that happen to you.

Just the other day, one of my businesses was broken into. They smashed the window in, and luckily nothing took their fancy… I mean it was a gym, I don’t know what they were expecting to find.

Is that fair that they chose my business to kick the window in of? No!

Did that stop them… NO!

Was I pissed off, you freaking bet!

Is there anything I can do about it, once its done.. No.

So I can either sit there moaning about it, working myself into a bigger funk. Or we can get it cleaned up, do what we need to do to get the window replaced, and get back on with business.

Will worse things happen in business to me? Almost certainly. And when they do I will remind myself to focus on the things I can control.

Life will kick you in the face and then kick you again when you are on the floor.

Again focus on the things you can control.

It is so easy to blame external factors. It makes you feel better for why you haven’t succeeded.

But all you are doing is passing on the responsibility to some other thing.

If you spend your whole time focusing on things you can’t control you will go crazy.

By the way, bit of a side note here……

Stop Watching The News

When you watch the news, all they are giving you is distressing news, that you can’t do ANYTHING about! But when you watch it, your body has the physiological and psychological reaction as if it’s happening to you. It’s not!

They know that negative news sucks people in, their job is to make it as bad as they can, as that is what gets more viewers.

So i recommend you don’t watch the news. Sure be aware of whats going on in the world, but don’t sit there soaking in all the negativity.

Focus On The Next Shot – The Present Time!

Also, as with my golf