Ep. 117 - Plugging the Leaks: Mastering What You Can Control

There are many areas in life where we do not have control. In this episode, we explore some of the important areas in life and how we can regain control through the power of choice. From financial decisions to time management, your health, and personal growth, we explore practical strategies to take control of what’s your in your control. 

Transcript

When preparing for each episode, I like to incorporate research and anecdotes to help dig into the topic. This week I was doing some nerding on a separate topic when a series of personal conversations shifted my focus. 

So today, I’m turning the focus to personal decisions we make related to the action we take (or don’t take). A favorite quote I heard recently is “The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.”

We all have wishes about future health, wealth, and happiness – and wishing is a great exercise for the imagination. But every fairytale wish needs a challenge to overcome. For modern wishes, the challenge usually resides within us. 

We’re living here in innovative times – there are solutions for almost anything we can wish for: medicine and apps and pills and products. Modern marketing is full of promises for all of these things– simply click, swipe, tap, and add to cart and all will be well. 

The one thing we can’t outsource however, is action. The Bottom Line on Top of this episode is that there is much in life we can’t control, so we need to take control of what’s in our control. 

Let’s narrow that down for a moment and start with health. 

In our go-go days, making time for exercise, nutrition, recipes, medical appointments, etc. often gets put in the “I Should Do That” column. Episode 110 talked about how making one decision might offset 100 future decisions. It centered on making a yes/no decision and then putting a time box around it. So: Yes, I will go to the dentist, and I will make the appointment before 5 p.m. today. 

That action can offset weeks or months of thinking, “Hmmm should I really go to the dentist, when can I fit that in, do I need to look for a new dentist, do I have an ache in my tooth?”

When it comes to health – in whatever way we’re defining health – the things we do today (the one decision) can have the power to remove the 100 decisions, or the 100 thoughts in our future. Health isn’t something we can retroactively fix. And for those who love to learn and explore with data, science, and psychology, health is comprised of lots of those goodies. 

The one thing we can’t do is ignore the action to be educated about our own health. When we avoid appointments, tests, and conversations we are just buffering. 

Ignorance isn’t a strategy. The headline for your health wishes here is to start by starting. 

In the span of 24 hours just last week, I heard about a colleague who is 10 years older than me who died unexpectedly and then I heard about a friend who is 10 years younger than me who just had a stent put in his heart. I recently started working with a new doctor and I’m going through all those set-up appointments, insurance claims, blood tests, and follow ups. 

It takes time, of course it does. But hopefully time being invested now will have future returns on the decisions that we are making. 

Speaking of investments, let’s move back to the wishlist and look at wealth. Episode 104 explored the superpower connection between math and money especially when it relates to compound interest. If you like fun brain teasers go check out that episode. 

Bringing money into today’s episode about control, really focuses on taking a moment to see where you are leaking money – these are the little expenses that add up like the $3 fee for phone storage, the late fee on a bill that could be waived if you just took the time to ask. How about the streaming subscription that you don’t use or you don’t value the same at its new increased price. 

My guess is that all of us could probably find at least $20 a month of little things that are just leaking away. 

Now shift that focus to what a found $20 a month could provide in returns. It doesn’t seem like a lot at first, but just like improved health, those small daily investments on re-invested or un-spent money add more future power to opportunities that aren’t even on our radar yet. 

When it comes to controlling wealth, the headline is to start by stopping. Stopping the leaks, stopping the mindless spending. 

The places to stop are for now. It could just be a return you need to send back, the card you need to cancel, or even the store credit that’s just getting dusty in a drawer. 

For the final focus, let’s go back to happiness. I’ve heard several people say: The summer is just slipping away!

Is it, though? Or have we already decided that we won’t prioritize enjoyment of it? I hear this around the holidays a lot too.

To help organize the buzz of my brain, I usually have a written list (or maybe more than one list) with tasks, reminders, etc. And even as a speaker and teacher of productivity, I can’t recall a time when all the things were done at the same time and that list was completely checked off. That’s life, right?

But if you tend to promise yourself that fun, happiness or rewards once you get to the end of a list or at the bottom of an email inbox – or even with a certain number in the bank account or on the scale – know this: Deferring your enjoyment of happiness is one sure way to dilute the very essence of it. 

Happiness gets to be a yes-and; it can be present today and be amplified with future actions, enjoyment and goals. 

When we assign a positive emotion, like happiness, to a future event, our brain takes that message as a fact and turns down the dial on our current emotions. 

The challenge here is when we either fail to achieve the bar where we’ve placed it for that future happiness or, when we do achieve it, the abundance isn’t as ample as we expected it to be. 

We traded a bet for euphoria and did so by muting the current memories that we could have had a chance to make. 

The headline for this is to stop planning to receive joy later and start savoring the options available right now. 

Please, please, please, turn off the tech and go walk in the sunshine. Eat a popsicle, get your feet wet or get them muddy. Whatever brings you joy shouldn’t ever be put on a list – unless it’s in the memory bank. 

I’m currently in the last summer where I have both my kids living with me. I’m doing my very best to focus on the daily moments with my dudes. And part of why I’m recording this is a reminder to myself that I’ll need to hear these headlines again (and probably again). 

There is so much that we don’t have control over, so how do we control what’s in our control?

For health, go make the appointment, call the dentist, do the test, update the prescription. Your future self needs you to. 

For wealth, stop the sneaky leaks. You have more than you need already. Cancel, unsubscribe, decline, and delete. 

For happiness, make time for real time. There is no better investment for ourselves and those we’re with than true attention. And that includes time for and time with yourself. You don’t have to be at every meeting, practice, party, and event. You really don’t.  

All those people-pleasing extras are the things that fill our time and fill our to-do lists, but they are never the things that bring the magic that we are seeking. That special magic wand is one that only we hold. 

That’s the control-what-we-control lesson for today. Or as Glinda the good witch in the Wizard of Oz says: “You've always had the power, my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself”