How Much Can You Control?

What we control in our lives is often influenced by what we think we can control. For example, I know a woman who doesn't think she can control her anger. Her anger spontaneously erupts, according to her.

And this woman's anger is causing a lot of trouble in her marriage. It would make a huge difference in her life if she learned to restrain at least her expression of anger.

But she "can't."

What doesn't ring true about that is the several times I've seen her angry before a phone rang or someone came to her door and yet she answered pleasantly. She is obviously capable of controlling her expression of anger but because she says she can't, she doesn't try, and if she won't try, of course she can't!

There is an enormous range of activities over which we have control but think we don't. And because we think we don't, we don't.

Now some extremists have taken this sane and practical truth and gone overboard with it. You don't create reality. You can't control everything.

But many of your own feelings and behaviors are firmly under your influence — but only if you allow the possibility that they are.It makes no sense to remain uncomfortably warm when you're sitting right next to a thermostat. Turn it down! I think the reason most people don't know how to change their feelings is because somewhere along the line they got the impression they couldn't change their feelings.

But you can, and by gum, you should!

Of course, you probably know that already. But if you have friends who don't know they can change their feelings, it might improve your mood to send them this article.What you can control is influenced by what you think you can control. Begin now changing the way you think. Recognize those areas where you do, in fact, have some influence. An effective way to change the way you think is with the Antivirus For Your Mind.

Unnecessarily limiting beliefs function like a virus on your computer, impairing its capabilities. But we now have a way to root out those beliefs and eliminate them, restoring your full potential. It takes some work, but it doesn't cost anything and it is more than worth the effort.

Adam Khan is the author of Antivirus For Your Mind: How to Strengthen Your Persistence and Determination and Feel Good More Often and co-author with Klassy Evans of How to Change the Way You Look at Things (in Plain English). Follow his podcast, The Adam Bomb.