YOU are in the Driver's Seat
I think one of the greatest lessons that I have learned over the years is to focus on what I can control instead of what i can't
What I discovered was that the amount of things that are in my power to control is very, very little. I cannot control the economy, business partners, spouses, friends, family, children, drivers, bank tellers, managers etc.
There are two things that in my power: My actions and my reactions. That is it. When I get in my head about what someone else is doing and how it is frustrating me, I pause and remind myself that I cannot control them or how they act. I can only control how I react (internally and externally) and respond to them.
This shift in perspective is quite freeing. I will give you an example of something that happened recently with a client.
She was the first person to give me a 1 star review in my entire career. Looking at the situation I can see that communication was the challenge. It was a tough file with an alternative lender and things were just not going smooth. Regardless, we could have done better on communicating to her throughout the process and I owned that publicly.
She received our monthly client newsletter and asked for me to remove her from the list, which I did immediately. I didn't realise that she was still on our network's newsletter distribution list, so unfortunately she received another newsletter from us. She responded with quite a bit of hostility and I replied by apologizing that I missed that and that I corrected it and that could she unsubscribe just to make sure it doesn't happen again?
Her response? “You are a f***ing idiot. Your customer service sucks and your incompetency knows no bounds.”
Years ago this comment would have probably left me in a puddle of tears and I would have questioned my worth as a mortgage broker. I would have tried to do anything to remedy this situation.
Instead I paused. I read the email a few times and I will admit that it hurt. The next thought in my mind was one of compassion. My thought was “how bad do you need to be hurting to be so cruel and so angry to me”. I did not respond to her email. I could have. I could have told her that I don't appreciate her abusive language and that it isn't called for. However, I knew that in order to keep my life peaceful and to defuse the situation that the best course of action was to let it go. I double deleted (like deleted it from deleted items) it from my email and moved on.
I chose how to react. I chose how to act in that situation. I was the driver. I was in charge and I had the power to control how the situation progressed.
You do too. When you feel yourself reacting to external factors I want you to step away from the situation and ask yourself these 3 questions:
- What is the story I am telling myself about this situation?
- What is the reality of the situation?
- How am I choosing to react?
Try this today. Look at the things that you are stressing over. Do you have the power to control the outcome? For example, you have put a deal together and submitted it to the lender. Can you control if they approve it or not? No. You put the deal together to the best of your ability and sent it in. It is now in the lender's control to make the decision.
When I was stressing over a file and I could feel it consuming me I would ask myself those 3 questions and then tell myself, “If it is meant to happen for my clients it will. I'm choosing to let go of the outcome". Boom. Instant peace. Ironically enough each time I did that a decision came quickly!
Let me know what it is that you can let go of and regain your peace and your power today!
