Helpful or harmful? You get to decide which thoughts earn space in your mind.
There’s a lot of extraneous thinking going on out there. Worries about things we can’t control or change. Nasty thoughts about other people that don’t fix anything. Taking responsibility for the choices of others whom we can’t control, fix or change.
Control. Fix. Change.
Those words can only apply to ourselves, not to other people or situations that have passed or aren’t here yet.
What happens when you keep thinking you can control, fix or change things that are outside your control? You feel like a failure. You feel afraid. This is harmful.
What happens when you focus on yourself without judgement? You feel a true sense of control. This is helpful.
CONTROL
Control is a great word that gets a bad rap. Control is fantastic. It’s what gives us a sense of knowing what is going to happen. It gives us a sense of safety.
When you control your thinking, as in being mindful and intentional in your thoughts, you feel grounded and secure, which is helpful.
When you let control over your thinking go by the wayside, you feel, well, out of control. That’s frightening. Then you become reactive, which is harmful.
When you try to control people and things that are outside your control you will fail.
You won’t fail because you didn’t try hard enough, but because you were never going to be able to control it or them. You are not a puppet master, and, unless I missed an advancement in evolution, you aren’t telepathic/kinetic.
So, instead of thinking things like “I should be able get her to understand” or “I can’t do anything right”, try thoughts like “I have explained this as best I can and if she chooses not to understand it is not in my control to make her” or “If I’m struggling with doing this what is another way I can approach it or who can I ask for help?”
That’s helpful thinking. Logic to help you remember what you can and cannot control. Questions to help you identify a solution instead of getting stuck on self-criticism.
FIX
What does it even mean to “fix” something? To correct? To rebuild or restore? To put to rights?
If you have the skill and tools to fix something, great, go for it. If you don’t, stop trying and setting yourself up for failure. Let someone who can do the fixing. It isn’t your job at that point.
A friend of mine had a lamp with a painted plaster eagle on a branch as the base. The lamp got knocked over and shattered. He was so determined he could put that thing back together that it sat for months with a few large parts glued together surrounded by the tiny shards that were never going to fit back in that eagle.
His determination to fix something that we could all see what not fixable kept him stuck.
Imagine we’re now talking about a person. Say you know someone who is “broken”. Maybe this means they are lost in grieving, or lost in anger, or can’t figure out how to motivate themselves. If you try to fix them you will get stuck because you do not have what it takes to fix them.
They are the only ones who do. They have to reach out for help. They have to decide to do the work to find their purpose and therefore motivation. You cannot do these things for them. As long as you believe you “should” be able to fix this for them you will be the one who is truly lost. This is harmful thinking.
It is more helpful to you and them to think things like “I can only offer my help, I cannot make them take it” or “It is not mine to determine someone else’s purpose, she has to find that herself, even if it’s painful for me to watch her struggle”.
Finding solutions for other people is not possible.
You can only find solutions for yourself.
CHANGE
Transformation! What a wonderful and often scary concept. Growing and changing are things many of us highly value. But it isn’t always easy and it isn’t always a priority to everyone you love.
We watch people we love spin their wheels and get nowhere. We can to help, we want to control, we want to fix! We forget that a person needs to not only want to change, but to be willing to change and deal with everything that comes with change.
You cannot make another person be ready for change.
You can decide you are ready for change and do what is necessary for it to occur, like the willingness to change your thinking from that which keeps you stuck to that which sets you fee.
“If he would just stop saying those terrible things about himself, he would be so much happier. Here, I’ll go and tell him what is wonderful about him and that will solve it.”
Nope. That’s harmful.
“It’s hard for me to hear him saying those terrible things about himself. I will tell him the wonderful things I believe about him. I also know I can’t make him change his perspective if he is not ready or has not found a reason inside himself to do so.”
Yes, I get that my suggestions of replacement thoughts are a little wordy. It’s because I want you putting more thought into these things. I want you thinking it through fully.
Understanding that others are not yours to change relieves you of unwarranted responsibility.
INTENTIONAL THINKING
It’s hard work to control, fix, and change ourselves. It’s impossible work to try to do it for anyone else.
The thinking you have is what will save or damn you. Realistic, logical, loving thinking will get you further than frustrated, angry, helpless thinking.
Helpful thoughts are those that support our reality, our purpose, ourselves.
You know when a thought is not helpful because you feel more stuck when you have that thought.
Helpful thoughts can feel scary because they are often about letting the world take care of itself. To be uncomfortable and not take action takes practice and willingness to be uncomfortable.
A life coach like me is what a person needs when feeling overwhelmed and needing a hand to learn how to sit with the distress, to know when to take charge and when to let someone else be in charge.
Set up your coaching today and we’ll create your solutions together.