3 Tips for gaining control of your life

If we made a list of all our grievances what do you think we would find to be one of the common denominators of our misery?

If when you make a list you notice that most of your complaints are towards family members, colleagues at work, close friends and loved ones, negative feelings about how they treat you, how they should be living their lives, then you need to readjust your list, since in reality there isn’t a thing you can do about it…..can you make someone else understand you, listen to you, make you feel better about yourself, do the things you think they should? The answer is no, we have no power and no control over others, our power is now and will forever more be over ourselves.

Here are 3 tips on how to take back control of your life and feelings…..

1."First seek to understand, then be understood" Stephan Covey Habit one of the seven habits of highly effective people

If one of your grievances is lack of communication, start by examining the way you communicate to this person. Are you shouting or expressing anger at the time? Are you listening, truly listening to what the other person is saying? Do you truly understand the other persons prospective of the situation?

Take the time to understand how the other person sees the situation. Truly understanding how the other person sees the situation can change the way we express ourselves, we can even find humour in it.
I would like to share this small true story with you.

A married couple had been fighting for two years over the cutlery draw in their kitchen, the husband wanted to cutlery in a certain order and the wife would always put cutlery back in any old order. One day the husband who is a lot taller than his wife decided to see the cutlery draw from his wife's prospective since he could not understand why she would not support him with this, he went to the draw and lowered his knees until he was at her height and what he saw was that from this angle he could see all the different cutlery in the draw, something he would not be able to see from his height, only the handles, once he realized this he shared it with his wife, she finally understood why he constantly made this request of her, since she could always see the full cutlery and could never understand what difference it made where the spoons went, they laughed, quite a bit and today the cutlery stays in the same order.

I would hazard a guess that in 99% of cases the person opposite us does not intentionally want to hurt us, they just see the situation from a different place, once you understand that place, you may find yourselves with more empathy and compassion, allowing the new exchange to come from a desire to communicate as opposed to a desire to attack back.

2.Turn it aroundr
Take each of your grievances and turn them around on YOU, is it really this other person that makes you feel this way or do you feel this way about yourself. Once you are aware that this negative feeling comes from inside you, you then have the POWER to change it.

3.Stay in your own businessr
If some of your grievances are with the way a loved one is living their lives, then I suggest getting out of their business immediately, its harmful to you and your relationship, it’s a waste of great energy and is not in your control.
These suggestions are hard work and take time and energy, however they can make your life your own again and allow you to use all your amazing stock of energy in an area where change can actually happen.

Once we take control back of our own lives and stay focused on ourselves we may just find that our list of grievances becomes shorter and our negative feelings towards others start to disappear……..