Stop Giving Your Energy to Things You Can’t Control
I want you to picture yourself standing inside a hula hoop.
Yes, an actual hula hoop.
Now think about everything that frustrates you throughout your workday.
Insurance rates.
Customers who don't return calls.
Technology changes.
Decisions made by people above you.
Teammates who don't do things the way you would.
The list could go on forever, couldn't it?
Here's my question.
How much of that actually belongs inside your hula hoop?
We Spend a Lot of Energy Outside Our Hoop
One of the exercises I love doing with agency teams is helping them identify what they can and cannot control.
Because I've found that we spend an incredible amount of time and emotional energy worrying about things we have absolutely no ability to change.
Take insurance rates.
We don't control them.
We can be frustrated by them.
We can complain about them.
We can spend our entire morning talking about how ridiculous they are.
But at the end of that conversation, guess what?
The rates haven't changed.
And now we've spent time and energy on something we couldn't control in the first place.
So What Is Inside Your Hoop?
Our preparation.
Our attitude.
Our response.
Our communication.
Our follow-through.
Those things belong to us.
We may not control a customer's premium increase.
But we can control how prepared we are to explain it.
We can control whether we proactively reach out.
We can control how well we understand the customer's situation.
We can control whether we explore appropriate options.
And we can control whether we follow through on what we promised.
That's a completely different way to approach the same situation.
Let It Bounce Off
Now, I'm not suggesting we ignore problems or pretend frustrating things don't exist.
Of course they do.
But we have to recognize the difference between something that affects us and something we can control.
Not everything that affects us deserves to consume us.
Sometimes we need to let those things bounce right off the outside of our hula hoop.
Then redirect our attention to the part that belongs to us.
Because that's where we can actually make a difference.
This Applies to Leadership, Too
Leaders, this one is for us.
We can't control every decision our team members make.
We can't control every customer's response.
And we certainly can't control every unexpected challenge that comes through the door.
But we can control how clearly we communicate expectations.
How well we prepare our people.
How we respond when something goes wrong.
And whether we follow through on our own commitments.
Sometimes the most productive leadership decision we can make is to stop trying to control everything and start taking responsibility for what actually belongs to us.
A Challenge for Your Next Frustrating Day
The next time something sends your frustration through the roof, ask yourself three questions.
What's happening?
What part of this can I actually control?
What am I going to do about that part?
Then put your energy there.
Because you don't have to control the entire situation to positively influence the outcome.
You just have to take ownership of what's inside your hula hoop.
And sometimes, that's where finding calm in the chaos begins.