4 things in life you can never control and what to do instead
“I don’t get upset over things I can control, because if I can control them there’s no sense in getting upset. And I don’t get upset over things I can’t control, because if I can’t control them there’s no sense in getting upset.”
Do you often find yourself upset, worried, frustrated, and angry because of things that your kids, spouse, or other family members do and say? If you answered yes, yes, and yes to that question, you are not alone. In fact, if there is one thing that we all spend too much energy on, it is getting upset and worrying about what I call the four things you can never control. Namely, what other people think, feel, say and do.
Many times in my conversations with other people, I find that we are talking about our frustrations and concerns with the people and relationships in our lives. Whether it’s the kids, spouse, boss, in-laws, or some other relationship, I think it’s pretty much universal that we just have a hard time dealing with and understanding people when they don’t think and act like we do.
I think this is especially true in our life as moms. We tell our kids a million times what we want them to do, what we expect, how to act etc, and yet there are so many times when they don’t do what we say, or they do the complete opposite! This makes us want to pull our hair out and it’s so easy to get upset in these situations. But I’m here to tell you that we will be frustrated and upset all the time if we are constantly reacting to what our kids and others do.
Once we realize that we can’t control our kids, or anyone else, we can begin to work on what we can control. What we can control is ourselves and our reactions to the situations that inevitably come up in our life as parents.
Because here’s the thing…
When we get caught up in trying to control others, we lose control of ourselves.
When we try to control our kids we yell.
We are impatient.
We worry what others will think of us and our parenting.
We come down too hard on our kids
When we try to control, we do a million things that don’t solve problems and that don’t look like us showing up as our best selves.
Kids are going to be kids. They are going to be messy, talk back, keep us up at night, fight with each other, make mistakes and bad choices, and the list goes on and on. The best thing we can do for ourselves, and for them, is to expect this and to plan accordingly.
We can decide in advance how we want to think and act when our kids don’t think and act the way we want them to. These moments are when we need to bring our best mom game and really show up as the moms we want to be.
Exerting independence and forming opinions are an important part of the developmental process. It’s so important to set appropriate boundaries and consequences for our kids, but to do it with love and patience. When we do this, we stay in the driver’s seat of our own life and keep control of our own emotions and actions.
I love the song Anything Like Me by Brad Paisley, and I think it really makes the point about what I’m saying here. If our kids are anything like us, things are going to be tough, and they are going to be amazing, while we are raising them. We are going to get our paybacks for all the things we did as kids!
At the end of the song he concludes that if his son is anything like him, everything will turn out alright in the end.
He’ll probably climb a tree too tall and ride his bike to fast
End up every summer wearin’ somethin’ in a cast
He’s gonna throw a ball and break some glass in a window down the street
He’s gonna get in trouble oh he’s gonna get in fights
I’m gonna lose my temper and some sleep
It’s safe to say that I’m gonna get my pay back if he’s anything like me
When we realize that kids will be kids, it becomes much easier to deal with misbehaving kids, fighting kids, tired kids, kids having tantrums, all kinds of kids…without falling apart and freaking out ourselves.
The key is to recognize when we are trying to control others instead of focusing on controlling ourselves. If we don’t want to yell at our kids, or feel frustrated and impatient all the time, we don’t need to change them. We need to do the work to change ourselves and our responses to them.
When we react rather than respond to parenting challenges, we give away all our power. We end up feeling drained and disappointed in ourselves at the end of the day because we weren’t the parents we wanted to be.
We can empower ourselves by focusing on controlling our own thoughts, words, feelings and actions. This may take more work on our part than just constantly reacting, but it is so worth it because we will find so much peace and calm in the process. Our kids can be falling apart, but we can keep it all together and keep a tone of love and peace in the home. And oftentimes the best thing we can do to calm our kids is to calm ourselves.
If this seems hard, I encourage you to look at just one problem area where you find yourself losing your cool and stressing out with the kids. There probably really aren’t that many things, just the same old things over and over. When you identify something that always presses your buttons, ask yourself how you could handle things differently.
In some situations you could try humor, or taking a 10 second pause before you react. I sometimes go to the bathroom and pray for help when I don’t know what to do. (Sometimes the bathroom is the only place a mom can get some peace and quiet. Am I right?)
There are always alternative ways to handle things and new perspectives you can bring to a situation that will empower you to handle things in a way that you feel good about.
I know you’re all amazing moms who love their kids and want the best for them. And the best thing you can do for them today is to stop focusing on controlling them and start focusing on controlling you!
XOXO
Rachel
P.S. This is mainly a parenting post so I focused on kids, but the same is true in all our relationships. Basing our own happiness on other people’s moods, feelings, and opinions, will be like travelling on a runaway train. It will always feel out of control! It’s very possible to have love and concern for others without internalizing all the stress of what we perceive as their flaws and things they should be doing differently.
