106: The Dichotomy of Control

The Graffiti Machine

For some years now, I’ve been a student of stoic philosophy. The biggest lesson from this philosophy is to focus on what you can control rather than things you cannot. It’s often difficult to do and one can easily forget to apply this. Most of the time, all you have control over is your actions and the outcome is not within your control. Focusing on the outcome—especially when it causes stress—can really drain a lot of your energy. Energy that you could use on the part you can control which is your actions. I recently found myself doing exactly this. Focusing nearly 100% of my attention on the outcome and not on the actions required to achieve the outcome I wanted. The result was me performing below my own standards since a lot of energy was diverted. The moment I realized I was doing this and redirected my focus on the controllables, my stress levels went way down. Do you find yourself focused on the outcomes rather than the actions you need to take to achieve what you want?