The Balancing Act of Control

We all crave the feeling of being in control and knowing how we can affect and therefore predict our lives. The reality is, however, that there are many things beyond our control.

We need to strike a balance between accepting the things we can't control and finding ways to enhance our perception of control in our lives.

When we believe we are in control, we are more likely to make deliberate changes to bring us closer to what we would like to happen. It even reduces our anxiety to know we are doing what we can and have a plan rather than sitting back and letting life happen.

When the 'letting life happen' attitude is taken to the extreme, learned helplessness can occur. Martin Seligman discovered this behavioral phenomena in his classic (and sad if you're an animal lover) experiment in the 1960's and 70's involving shocking dogs. Dogs in one group were shocked no matter what they did while dogs in another group were shocked until they jumped the barrier to stop being shocked. When all the dogs were put in a situation where they could escape from the shocking, the dogs who could not escape the shocks before did not make any attempts to escape even though it would have been easy this time. They had already learned that bad things happened no matter what they did, so why bother trying to escape it?

You can see how this can translate into people's behavior in everyday life. If someone has been unemployed for a while and continually gets rejected from jobs, after a while they may get down on themselves and stop trying. Another example is a person in an abusive relationship who feels their is no hope out of the situation. The most relatable example is health problems. Managing chronic illnesses is incredibly stressful and sometimes flare-ups seem to come out of nowhere. There are so many factors involved that can affect the course of the disease, and sometimes it will just be crappy no matter what. The trick is to keep trying and doing what you can so you don't fall into the depths of depression.

It can help to keep a log of your symptoms and the things you are trying to do. That way, you can look back and see if there was an impact. I strongly believe that our thought patterns can influence our bodies, and you probably already know the correlation between stress and a whole host of illnesses. In my own experience, I saw the difference between a hopeless attitude and a determined attitude in my own healing when I was recovering from a stress fracture in college. While it wasn't a serious health challenge or anything, it was a big deal for me because it made it so I couldn't practice and compete with the track team. I also knew my scholarship was on the line if I didn't recover and prove myself again quickly.

Most stress fractures should only takes about 6 weeks to heal, and mine was already past that point and didn't seem anywhere close to being healed. I started feelings hopeless and sorry for myself. I was angry I couldn't do what I loved, and I wondered if I would ever get back to where I was before. One day I made a conscious choice to change my mindset and try to take control of the situation as best I could. I wrote down a goal date for when I would like to be better, and I would  even imagine myself running again by that time. More importantly, I wrote down specific things I can do every day to enhance healing. Such as ice baths, massage, stretching, physical therapy exercises, eating healthy, etc. This way I could look at my tasks and my goal every day to remind me I could do something to help enhance healing, rather than sadly waiting for this time to be over.

That was a turning point for me and it was astonishing how quickly my body started healing--as opposed to the stunted healing I experienced before due to my own negative attitude. I understand that not every situation is this simple and resolves as easily as a little stress fracture, but the principle is still true. Do what you can, keep you sights set on what you would like (within reality), and you can feel more in control in your own life. However, I need a whole other blog post to discuss learning to accept the things beyond your control!

Have you ever had a situation that seemed hopeless but then you changed your perspective somehow?

How do you feel about control in your own life?