How to Stop Stressing About The Things You Can’t Control

For many, the definition of life can be described with the word ‘change’. With change, comes uncertainty. With uncertainty, comes loss of control and stress. By focusing on the little things that make you happy, your health, and the act of responding versus reacting (all simple aspects of life that you can control), life will inevitably become stress-less and filled with a much better sense of peace.

The uncontrollable’s in life can drive anyone crazy. The crazy thing about it is that no matter how much you stress, the things you can’t control will always be just that. The art of living is to evolve to a state where you can let things go and be ok with the fact that no matter how important something might be, if it’s out of your control, it’s not something that you’ll be able to make choices over. Rather, instead of stressing about what you can’t control, isn’t it time to focus on a few important things you can?

In life, happiness is relative. It’s something that most strive to achieve, yet many find difficult to attain. There are many reasons for the perception of failure to be happy, yet one consistent variable is due to an over-focus on what’s not making you happy rather than the simplicity of what can. The topic of being happy can not begin to be described in any one simple verbiage, however focusing more on what happiness means to you instead of what it doesn’t is a good place to start. The more we each fill our thoughts and minds and appreciate the little things that make us happy, the more those little things will build up and happiness will be realized. Remember, there’s only so much room for thoughts at any given time, so the more positive thoughts you have, the less time you’ll have to worry about all those things you can’t control that previously stressed you out and made you unhappy.

Your health is the one true aspect of your self that, without, you can and will not survive. Despite all the real and self imposed stressors of daily life, consistency of health is a huge aspect that not only can you control, but will hugely predict all other aspects of your life. I don’t know about you, but when the world seems to be falling apart all around you, knowing that you can rely on either good health or control how you feed your health in that moment (and I’m not just talking about diet) can make all the difference. If good health makes you feel better, no matter what surrounds you, you always have the choice to feel good from the inside out.

Ok, we’ve all done it. We all continue to do it. When something stresses you out, you react in the heat of the moment. For most of us, when we see another react in a manner less than intelligently or driven by negative emotion, advice on how that person should have reacted fills our minds with alternatives. If only we’d listen to our own advise we often want to offer others, life would be filled with ‘responding’ to stress rather than simply reacting. When you respond rather than react, you more intelligently perceive the present moment. Responses are less driven by emotional negativity, and more so predicted by positive outcome. No matter what uncontrollable situation may be at hand, spending more time focusing on our response rather than the event itself can ultimately turn a negative quickly into a positive.