It is easy to feel stuck, stuck by your work situation, stuck by the effect it has on the rest of your life. We have obligations that weigh us down and we trudge along, hoping for the day that it will “get better.”
What if I told you that today could be that day?
What a relief that would be. And when you think about it, relief is what we really want. Sure, we want happiness and contentment and joy, but under all that is a deep craving for relief.
The good news is that to get that relief, we just have to debunk one lie.
You ready? Here it is:
I have no control.
That’s the lie, the belief that you have no control.
Sometimes it masquerades itself as the platitude “it is what it is”.
I know it feels like a fact but stay with me.
How do you feel when you believe you have no control? Defeated? Helpless? Disempowered?
And when you feel defeated, helpless and disempowered, how likely are you to take any kind of positive forward action? How likely are you to look for solutions?
I don’t know about you, but disempowered doesn’t usually prompt me into action, it prompts me to carbs and the couch. And from that comfy place I can beat myself up for not doing the things that I want to do but I don’t have the energy for, effectively layering more defeat onto the disempowered.
It’s an easy place to get to, or slide back to, but luckily for us, it doesn’t have to be a hard place to come back from. I know because I do it at least once a week in my own life. The more we practice stepping away from defeat and disempowerment, the easier it gets and the less frequently it occurs.
We create positive forward momentum.
We regain control (the control we always actually had).
So how do we get around this lie: I have no control?
Simple.
We realize we are thinking it and decide instead to look for the things we do have control over. We look for evidence to the contrary. We debunk it by taking control.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t parts of our day that are decided for us: your assignment at work, your support staff, your resources.
But we don’t have to control EVERYTHING to feel empowered. We have to have SOME control. (Don’t believe me, there is tons of research to support that it is the perception of control that is protective against burnout and not objective control.)
Can you name 3 things that you have control over at work? Can you name 3 things that you have control over for your health or your peace of mind?
Here are some ideas from my own experience this week.
I control how much I joke around with my coworkers.
I control how and when I do my notes.
I control how much I focus on each patient, how involved I want to get on each individual problem.
I control whether or not I want to participate in complaining.
And then there is the big one of controlling how I want to approach each patient’s treatment regimen.
And then when it came to being at home this week…
I control what time I go to bed (confession, it was really early this week.)
I control what I have for dinner, whether I cook, or get takeout (or have popcorn and a fudgsicle)
I control which things I am prioritizing, and which things I am going to let slide until next week, or the week after, or never.
The magic lies in the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of this control. When we discredit the belief that we have no control, that “it is what it is”, then we can start looking for solutions.
We become empowered.
Being empowered feels great, and when we feel great, it is so much easier to try new things, to explore new possibilities, to move into relief and from relief into satisfaction.
Off the couch and away from the carbs.
Find the control you already have (I promise it’s there) and have an amazingly satisfying day.
If you really can’t dig yourself out of a disempowered place, reach out to me, I would really love to help you. megan@nursingbeyondthejob.com
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