Being In Control Is All About Letting Go

I was having a conversation with someone recently about the concept of Living Consciously. After a while they said to me, “it sounds like it’s all about always being in control”. I replied, “it’s not about always being in control all the time, but understanding when to take control and when it is about letting go.”

I believe the phrase ‘control freak’ popped up in that conversation too.

The way I feel about living consciously is that it’s more about letting go than it is taking control.

A quick example is the feeling of frustration. Frustration is often as a result of a situation not going the way we wanted it to. So rather than trying to force an outcome, I do what I need to and just allow the results to unfold.

Letting Go

The thing I do try and take control of is my mind. If I were to always let my mind do what it wants I would probably be stressed out often because my mind has the habit of running away with thoughts of “I need to do this, I need to do that, I have to contact so and so, I have to respond to this email” etc.

So what I do is I say ‘stop, relax and chill’. I take a moment to regain control of my most important faculty and when I’ve gotten to a point where I’m relaxed again I’ll let go.

Simply put, I can control what goes on inside me, but I can’t control what goes on outside.

I’m in control of what I choose to focus on. When I don’t take control of that power, my emotions tend to be more erratic. Whereas, if I take control and choose what to focus on, my emotions are more in check; and that is a good thing. After all, how many good things have you done or achieved while you’ve been irrational?

I’m not in control of how well this article performs. I’m only in control of the writing and focusing on making my point clearly an making sure that people enjoy reading what I write.

Lets say I’m pitching a new client. I’m in complete control of my pitch, but I can’t force them to accept me. That’s always their choice…if I push too hard because I’m desperate they’re more likely to pull away.

But lets just take that one step further and focus on the ‘pitch’ part of that example. I am in control of how well I perform during the pitch. If I’m a nervous speaker, I can prepare myself better and therefore perform better. That is also within my control.

The outcome is always in the hands of something I have no power over. Even if I did, where would the mystery and excitement in life go?

There is so much power and respite in letting go. When you let go and and stop trying to be in control of everything you’ll find that more happens to go your way.

Try this; be in control of letting go, i.e., decide, for now that you’re going to let go of trying to control how things turn out in your life, just enjoy the here and now and the doing.