Are you in control of your life? Or is life controlling you? In order to live a meaningful life, you need to be in control of it. Being in control is synonymous with knowing yourself and having a clear idea on what you want in life. Who you are and what do you want to be? It is your life. Unless you are a minor, you are supposed to be the one in charge. You can never really be happy or you may even feel exhausted if your life is being dictated by your environment. So, to help you, here are some ways to regain control of your life.
What does it Mean to Not Be in Control?
Are you a product of your environment? You will know you are, if your thoughts, beliefs, feelings and actions if you allow external events or people surrounding you control your decisions. For example, you wake in the morning and the first thing that you do is check your social media account. You saw bad news from an article and you let your whole day become affected by it. What happens is that you become reactive to the situation and thus, become a victim of the environment.
Ways to Regain Control of Your Life
Don’t live your life like this. Instead, regain control of your life through the following ways:
1.Step Back
The first step to regaining control of your life is to step back. You are probably lost in living your life that you are living on auto-pilot. Stop for a moment to calm yourself, think and assess your situation. Give yourself time to think about your life in a broader context. For example, you are lost in the forest. You have been walking around in circles for hours and still, you can’t find your way out. The best thing to do is to stop first. Take a rest. Assess your location. Instead of looking at the trees, you need to picture the whole forest to give you a better perspective on how to proceed from where you are.
2. Know What You Really Want
The second step to regaining control of your life is self-assessment. You need to know exactly what you want. Who are you? What makes you happy and sad? What is it that you really want to accomplish in life? You can start by creating your bucket list. Your goals will serve as the roadmap for your life.
3.Rank What Is Important For You
Based on what you really want in life, it is now time to rank what matters most to you. Is it your health? Wealth? Your relationships? Whatever it is you need to be honest with yourself. That’s the only way to move forward. You may not like the answer but it may be something that you have to address first. There are several dimensions of wellness. Rank them according to what is important to you now. Your preference will definitely change later on once you have addressed the more pressing issue.
4. Learn To Say No
When you say no to things, opportunities or requests; what you are actually doing is empowering yourself to make the decision. It means you are very clear on what you want and that you are firm with your preference. In a way, it cultivates a healthy relationship with the people around you. Do not be scared to offend others because you are just being honest. Saying yes too often, even if you don’t want to can lead to resentment. It can also be emotionally draining. This in turn will only hurt the relationship in the long run. And besides, saying no will allow you to have the time to say yes to what’s more important for you.
5.Listen To Your Intuition
Trust your gut feeling. It is when you immediately know something. For some reason, you just know and understand. Sometimes, it does not even make sense. But somehow you just know. That’s your intuition trying to tell you something.
You only have one life. Make it count!
Click here to get a free copy of Regain Control of Your Life worksheet.
Click here to watch the video.
Feature Photo by Bruno Henrique from Pexels
