A little over 20 years ago, I started my first real “grown up” job. I was working as a chemist for what was at the time one of the world’s largest generic drug manufacturers. I was showing up to work early, staying late to make sure the work was getting done, and I was coming home utterly exhausted. I felt like I had very little energy, and I couldn’t seem to get the most basic things done. I had images in my mind of my parents (who both worked full-time jobs) coming home from work, preparing dinner, working in the garden, going fishing, canning vegetables, playing cards, and still finding time to spend with me and my brother and sister. A year into my job as a chemist, and I couldn’t understand how they did it. I was waking up early, working 10-12 hours a day, and by the time I got back home, I didn’t feel like cooking or even getting groceries, so I would order a pizza or some other delivered food or take-out. Life felt pretty out of control.
One day (I’m not even sure what initially triggered it), I pulled out a piece of paper and started writing out some of what I called “pathetic life goals.” The reason I gave them that name was because they were goals that I felt were actually what most people (aka everyone other than me) already had in place, but I was struggling. My pathetic life goals consisted of daily activities like:
- Have a consistent bedtime
- Eat three meals (preferably from groceries I bought)
- Get eight hours of sleep
- Exercise for at least 30 minutes
- Carve out daily time to read at least 15 minutes
I also had some weekly activities included like:
- Buy groceries
- Wash laundry
These weren’t big hairy audacious goals like “run a marathon” or “write a book,” but these little goals provided me with an opportunity to aspire toward a bare-minimum of activity that I felt should be normal for someone in his/her early 20s. Amazingly, within a matter of a few weeks of checking these tasks off on my daily lists, I was starting to feel more in control, and I was developing a series of healthy habits that were helping me to be more productive at work and have more energy when I got home.
Maybe you never had an experience like mine as I was starting my career, but we’ve all experienced times of uncertainty where life can feel pretty out of control. It almost feels as though everything and everyone is conspiring against us. We can choose to engage with those moments (and truthfully every moment) with one of two different mindsets or approaches. The first one is called an external locus of control. In this approach, perceive everything as being out of our control, and our only option is to just wait things out, and hope for the best, or just perpetually spin our wheels reacting to circumstances. Truthfully, there are some things out of our control. For instance, I can’t determine whether you will keep reading this post or not (though I hope you will), but I can choose to share this online anyway. A major problem arises for us when we start to think everything is out of our control.
The second approach or mindset is one of an internal locus of control. An internal locus of control helps us understand that there are a significant number of activities in our day that are in our own ability to control.
When things feel out of control, a good practice for regaining control starts with a short pause. Stop reacting for a minute or two, and think about areas of your life that you do have control over. And then, start exercising control there. There are four major areas each of us have control over, and as we begin to exercise control over these areas we and those around us can benefit from our choices.
We can choose to exercise discipline that will help remind us that not everything is out of our control, and help us strengthen our internal locus of control. Most of us, but not everyone, can do all four of these. Take a look at each one and consider how you might be able to make improvements in each area. It is really a strange phenomenon, but I’ve found that as we exercise discipline in these areas of our lives, feel more in control in general, and we feel more fulfilled and more prepared to take what the day throws at us. As an interesting side-note, these areas each seem to have a relationship with each other such that as you exercise discipline in one area, you are better able to exercise discipline in the others. Isn’t that fascinating? Also, each of these areas has an added bonus of boosting your immune system—so you are less likely to have an illness throw you for a loop as you are trying to gain control of your daily life.
Sleep—Did you know that getting eight hours of sleep a night, and establishing a consistent bedtime/wake time have been shown to boost your immune system and brain health? If you don’t have a consistent bedtime, what time could you start going to bed to insure you have eight hours of sleep each night? There’s a great book I recently read that goes into a lot of detail about the benefits of sleep. Check it out here.
Eat—The author Michael Pollan offers this simple seven word piece of advice on diet. Eat food, not a lot, mostly plants. Choosing to reduce the amount of processed food you eat, and boosting the amount of real, whole foods you eat (especially green leafy vegetables, cruciferous veggies – like broccoli and kale – and beans) help boost your diets fiber content and strengthen your immune system. Personally, I’m a big fan of whole-food plant-based (WFPB) diets, but a good start for anyone is simply to minimize the processed food you eat.
Exercise—By exercise, I’m not talking about hitting the gym for two hours a day, or training for a marathon. What I mean is this, get outside (preferably) and do something that elevates your heartrate a little bit beyond its normal levels for 30 minutes a day. For some folks this means getting out and walking for 30 minutes. For others, it might mean running, riding a bike, or doing calisthenics. If you are looking for an app to suggest workouts, check out this one called Bodyweight. The biggest challenge for most of us is turning off the tv, getting off the couch, and getting moving.
Pray/Meditate—A few weeks ago, I read a book by a guy named Daniel Levitin called Successful Aging. He covers a wide variety of subjects (interestingly, including food, exercise and sleep), and he also cites academic studies demonstrating the power of meditation and prayer on brain health. Karl Barth once said, “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” If you are uncertain how to start in this arena, maybe start with a minute or two of gratitude for what is going right in your world right now. Maybe it is something as simple as God thank you that I have a roof over my head…food to eat…clean water to drink…my family is healthy. And if you can’t start there, maybe just take four or five deep breaths once or twice a day.
No matter where you are or what you are encountering in your world, I am confident that if you choose to exercise a little discipline in one (or all) of these areas, you will begin to feel a little more in control, and you can be better equipped to do the next right thing in service of those around you.
Thanks for reading.
