BE EMPOWERED, NOT VICTIMIZED
Each one of us competing to win in some important area of life have to accept that sometimes things just aren’t fair. There are so many circumstances that exist beyond our control, and many of them have a direct influence on our experience, our performance, and our pursuit of success.
What we choose to do with those circumstances - how we frame them and the role we assign to them - is so important. We can of course do what most people do when that uncontrollable adversity hits and become the victim. Even many of those who say they really want to win are quick to bail on their pursuit when things get tough. They focus their attention on complaining about the unfairness of their situation, making excuses for why things didn’t get done, and finding someone or something to blame. Most people are easily victimized.
That’s a big reason why most people aren’t champions. In the midst of our challenging circumstances, it’s a lot harder to do what champions do. It’s a lot harder to frame those circumstances as a necessary or at least an inevitable part of our winning pursuit. It’s a lot harder to handle those things happening outside our control with strength of spirit and clarity of mind. And with all that uncontrollable stuff going on around us, it’s a lot harder to keep our attention and our energy focused on the things that matter most.
The things that matter most are the things that exist inside our control. That’s true for each one of us, and true for you today, too. No matter what’s happening around you, your peak performance and your best shot at success come when you make the controllables your top priority. Here are three simple but powerful areas of your performance that are always controllable…
1) No matter what’s happening around you, you get to control your EFFORT. No external circumstance can keep you from giving your very best and laying it all on the line. If your effort diminishes when things get tough, it’s only because you’ve allowed it to happen. Hall of Fame basketball player Hakeem Olajuwon famously said, “It’s not up to anyone else to make me give my best.” It’s a simple way of saying that you and you alone are in control of your effort.
2) No matter what’s happening around you, you get to control your ATTITUDE. The preacher and author Charles Swindoll recognized the critical role attitude plays in our experience, our performance, and our pursuit of success. He said, “We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day.” That’s so important to accept, especially in the context of the rest of his quote. “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. Our attitude is everything.” Swindoll said it best. Your attitude is everything, and you alone are in control of it.
3) No matter what’s happening around you, you get to control your RESPONSE. If anyone had a right to feel victimized by his circumstances, it was holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. But after his release, the Austrian psychiatrist made breakthrough contributions to his field of study and wrote the best-selling book, Man’s Search for Meaning. “Between stimulus and response there is a space,” Frankl once said. “In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” There is power, growth, and freedom in our response. You and you alone are in control of yours.
When you choose to focus your attention and your energy on the things you can control, you aren’t victimized. You’re empowered. Despite all the uncontrollable circumstances you face, you remain the author of your story. Controlling the controllables - your effort, your attitude, and your response to what happens, even if it’s unexpected or unwanted - keeps you in charge, and it gives you the best shot at the success you say you’re after.
There’s no disputing that sometimes things just aren’t fair. Yes, there are many circumstances that exist beyond our control, and yes, many of them have a direct influence on our experience, our performance, and our pursuit of success. That’s why it’s so important that each day we have to make the difficult, uncomfortable, inconvenient choice that winning requires. We have to focus on the controllables. We have to do what champions do.