What can you control?

In the last year given the variety of difficulties the entire world has suffered, one thing that stood out to me was just how little we are actually in control of day to day. To take that one step further I have also realised that the more time and attention that we give these things in our life, the more stress and anxiety we ultimately end up creating for ourselves.

We all have our own individual individual challenges day to day, this could be just about anything from issues at work, to money problems or even just simply the stress of struggling to improve your scores and reach your goals. No matter what those issues are, its severity is only relevant to the importance that we personally place on it. However, all to often we build these issues up so much that they become far more difficult to overcome than they ever need to be.

So how can we prevent this from happening? The simple answer is that we need to switch our focus and attention onto the things that are actually within our control.

This can be done in a number of ways, and my mind jumps to a recent example of a talented young junior player which I coach. As his performance slowly improved over the course of the season, his mind began to wander during the closing stages of a round when he looked like he could have an opportunity to shoot a good number. As his focus switched to "getting over the finish line", mistakes were almost inevitable!

After this had happened a couple of times he was strong enough to come to me and mention his frustration at this happening. First and foremost for a young man to do this shows something special, but the fact he was open to improving it shows that he is above all else a fighter. We came to the conclusion that we needed to focus on two aspects:

1) Staying more in the present, and making sure that our focus remained on the task at hand at all times

2) Control items that are within our control, while accepting that outcomes and results are out of our control.