How to learn from and let go of things we can't control.
Download MP3Hello, everyone. This is Mike, and you're listening to the J. Mike Fields podcast. I had mentioned last week that I was going to work through the difference between black and white thinking as opposed to gray thinking and finding that middle ground, But I decided to change this at the last minute so you're gonna get the unedited version. I'm not gonna cut this down, so it may be a little longer with my normal podcasts are.
Speaker 1:I like to do things about ten or fifteen minutes unless I'm talking through an idea with somebody and then that could range for an hour, hour and a half, and and so forth. But I wanted to go and actually dive into how to let go of things that we cannot control and how to know the difference in things that we can control and things that we can't. So let's start with the things that we cannot control. Typically when we can't control something, and we have an emotional reaction to it, that means that there's some kind of inner conflict that's going on. So let's take for instance some things that are going on right now, we have a presidential election.
Speaker 1:If you mention a candidate's name, a lot of people will emotionally react. So it's really not the candidate that they're reacting to, it's typically something that's actually involved inside themselves. Now I'm not saying that you can't dislike somebody or that you can't have morals and values that you stand for and when they start talking about a certain person, it charges you emotionally. The difference is when you start to go unconscious. So, unconscious is throwing a fit, a temper tantrum, and especially this last point, not being able to see the other individual's side or especially if you're watching the news or a YouTube video or you see someone post something on Facebook and you get emotionally charged and start having an argument with that person in your head, they are in control of you.
Speaker 1:Those are things that you cannot control, that you're letting yourself emotionally react to, and guess who's actually in control of you? Not you. It's that person or that subject. But the reason that we have emotional responses to those kinds of things is always an internal conflict. It's something that we have not resolved.
Speaker 1:So when we hear a subject that fires us up, our nervous system attaches onto that. It gets stimulus from it. So try to kind of a broad range of that idea is when you react to something that's out of your control and you become unconscious, even if you mess up, even if you let yourself go unconscious and you get enraged or you get angry or you get super sad, once that emotion has released itself and you worked yourself through it, go back and look and ask yourself, why did I react in this way? What am I not dealing with in me that's causing other people and situations that are out of my control to control me? There's some good ways to do that.
Speaker 1:Take advice from cognitive therapists, which is, I think, great advice is is to journal and to not hold back. You know, I think people think when you write so I I run a life coaching practice. So I should probably mention this, I've been in the coaching industry for fifteen years. I love people. I remember listening to Tony Robbins tapes when I was 12 years old, like, what 12 year old does that?
Speaker 1:I've just always been, deeply enthused with human psychology, why people do what they do, why people make certain choices, why people pick certain careers and spouses, why people choose to have kids and not, why people choose to have dogs and cats, you name it. I'm super high in openness. I love ideas, I love talking through new ideas and, pretty non judgmental. I'm willing to listen to other people and I think other people are fascinating even if they're completely opposite of me. So I I run a a studio, an exercise studio in the mornings, and then I have a online business, and I also have life coaching business.
Speaker 1:I have an office studio set up right next to my, my studio for fitness and that kind of stuff. So typically in my fitness, coaching, I I work with entrepreneurs, so that's helped me in my business. It's like getting free advice. Right? But they pay me to do it.
Speaker 1:If you guys are listening, just ignore that part. But, in the afternoon, I do life coaching with people and, brief intro into life coaching. Basically, it's just to help people sort out their ideas and kind of keep them accountable on the goals that they want to achieve. So if they're wanting to start a business, we just go through and we'll go through a couple weeks or we'll schedule out a couple months, and we'll set actions for them to complete. And I just hold them accountable to it in another episode about my life coaching practice and kind of what that entails.
Speaker 1:But talking about journaling, don't hold back. Write exactly how you're feeling and, you know, write it nonjudgmentally. Nobody else is gonna read it. You don't have to show it to anybody. So if you're upset, be upset on that paper.
Speaker 1:Nobody else is gonna see it. Like I said, you can burn this. You can get rid of it. I suggest keeping it because it's a great learning experience, and you can go back and look at it later. But write out exactly how you feel.
Speaker 1:Do about five minutes. But this is important, especially when you get done. Take about two minutes and then write at the end of the journal what you're grateful for. You know? It doesn't have to be anything in-depth.
Speaker 1:I mean, it can be super basic. Like, you know, I'm grateful I woke up this morning. I'm grateful I have a vehicle to drive. I'm grateful I have food in my refrigerator. So it doesn't have to be anything complex, just just super simple.
Speaker 1:So what you're doing when you're journaling, you're actually helping yourself sort out your own ideas, which is important. So, if you don't feel like you have somebody to talk to or there's no one around or let's say you tried to call your best friend but they weren't available, just write it down. I think you'll be surprised by how much better you feel and how much you'll discover and learn about why you're emotionally reacting to subjects that are out of your control. Also, another reason you may feel that you emotionally react to things that are out of your control is because you're not properly taking care of yourself. So I have a morning routine.
Speaker 1:I have a short one that I can do, and then if I have time, I have a long one I can do. I'm up about 03:30AM every morning. I have clients sometimes super early that have to work out before work, but sometimes I just get up anyway and get up and do my routine, have my coffee and all that good stuff. But but it's really important to make sure that you're taking care of your body, your mental health, to make sure that you're socializing, make sure that you're not staying at your house all the time, which I have to remind myself of. I have three beautiful dogs that I love spending time with at home and got a couple acres of woods that I like going out and playing in.
Speaker 1:So, my friends have to text me every once in a while to make sure that I'm still alive and not too deep in my thought process. I love deep diving into things and we'll kinda talk about that in some other episodes too. But you've gotta take care of yourself. And the big thing is, you know, start small. So my short routine, literally, I may just max push ups one time or I may jump on my row machine for ten minutes.
Speaker 1:I like to get I have an infrared sauna that some of my clients gave me a couple years ago and I love using that, so I'll hop in that. I do a short little five minute, gratitude routine where I say out loud some things that I'm grateful for and and also journal them down too, but I like to speak out loud what I'm grateful for as well. I like to read, and then I I love writing. And since I started the podcast, I've never just spoken into a microphone before. So I I like to practice and do a couple things, and I think you'll notice, this is my first time doing these type of things.
Speaker 1:So I I think we'll get I'll get better as we go. But take care of yourself. Take care of your mental health. Make sure that you're talking with people. If you're not doing well, reach out to somebody.
Speaker 1:Think think what you would do if your if your best friend wasn't doing well mentally, and they said, well, I just didn't wanna bother you. What would you say to them? Of course, you would want them to contact you, and they're gonna say the same thing to you. So I'm a big mental health advocate. If you're struggling, reach out to somebody.
Speaker 1:They want you to. Please do it. Don't let that voice inside your head that's telling you not to do not to reach out to somebody win because that's not you, and those things are evil and and I I hate that kind of stuff. So if if you're struggling, you know you know, reach out. Somebody is always willing to listen and and for some reason you can't get a hold hold of somebody, again, just work through that journal and see if that kinda helps with you.
Speaker 1:Or go outside and take a walk. Do something like that to kinda get your blood flowing. But back to the point, make sure that you're taking care of yourself, your physical health, your mental health, your relationships, your emotional health, and all those good things. Make sure you're eating proper food. That that's really important too as far as your energy is concerned.
Speaker 1:So journal, I think that's very helpful. I think it's a big one. That's why I labeled that one first. And then the second is to make sure that you're taking care of your body and your mental health and all that stuff. So a morning routine would be a good thing to do for that.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about things that you can control. So really, the only things you can control is your perception or your attitude about a situation and your actions, the things that you decide to do. And sometimes people say thoughts. I I don't like to label that you can control thoughts. Sometimes we have intrusive thoughts that just kind of come out of nowhere.
Speaker 1:So it's better to more observe your thoughts because if you try to control your thoughts so think about, I use this example all the time. Think about if you told somebody, like, you're not allowed to eat Snickers bars anymore. I do not want you to eat Snickers bars, and if I see you doing that, you're in big trouble. They're gonna go eat 50 Snickers bars that day. So the same thing when you say, I'm not gonna think that thought or I'm not gonna smoke a cigarette today or I'm not gonna drink a beer today.
Speaker 1:Well, the gas station is gonna move out right outside your house and you're gonna go get a beer and have a cigarette. So don't tell yourself that you're, no, I'm not gonna think that. Just observe the thought. You know, we're allowed to pick our thoughts, you know, and the cliche example is it's like clouds passing through the sky. Right?
Speaker 1:So just observe, and look at each one and then pick the one that you wanna, like, hang out with. So that's kind of a good example for that even though a lot of people use it. So we can control perception and actions. So if you're in a situation that you can't control, the only thing you can do is reframe. So if you have let's say you're having an emotional reaction about something you can't control, the only thing you can do is reframe your situation.
Speaker 1:Well, what's the worst thing that could happen? Or what's the best thing that could happen? What can I do to control myself in this moment? Is it really as bad as I'm letting myself think it is? So to ask yourself those questions too, to kind of get the thoughts flowing and and change your perception about a situation.
Speaker 1:So we can let little things ruin us, someone cuts us off in traffic, and we could have a bad day the rest of the day just because we're in a bad mood about that and we let it spiral out of control. And then one thought led to another and then and we had an emotional reaction from it. And then before you know it, we're unconscious just from somebody cutting us off and they could have not even noticed that you were there or did it on accident or maybe they were having an emergency and they needed to get over quickly and leave. So when you notice those things and start to be aware of your thoughts, it makes it easier for you not to spiral out of control. But if you do, you can pause for a moment and reframe your perception.
Speaker 1:So we reframe our attitude about things. So I like to use those interchangeably, the perception and the attitude. So also we control our actions. Right? So if you're not feeling well or if you're feeling stressed out a bit about a situation, go work out.
Speaker 1:Like, go get your blood flowing. I have never regretted working out, not one time. And once I get in there, I'm always glad I got it in there and got it done and finished it, and it makes you feel good about yourself too. So, you know, I think I'm just gonna stop there. Like I said, this is unedited.
Speaker 1:I'm just gonna post it and and I hope a couple people listen to it. And if it helps one person, I said this when I started social media accounts, if I can reach one person, I've done my job and, and I feel good about that. So I'm gonna try to post an episode once a week. I'm gonna have some guests sometimes and hopefully a co host one of these days. But some weeks I may miss, some weeks I may post too.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I'm high in openness so if I jump to an idea that I like, I'm gonna hop on here and start talking. So anyway, guys, I hope you learned something from this. If you did, you know, shoot me a message or shoot me a message of something that you want me to talk about and work through. Or if you have any ideas about how how I could better the situation and and, you know, and and maybe talk longer or talk shorter or cut these things up for you, that would be great because I'm new to this. But I hope you guys have a great week.
Speaker 1:Try to be mindful of those things when you jump out of control and don't be hard on yourself. You're you're gonna mess up. You're gonna emotionally react to things and go unconscious. I do it all the time. Just pause, take a second, change that perception, and, and remember you're always in control of your actions.
Speaker 1:So I hope you guys have a great week, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
