What To Do When Everything Feels Out Of Control

First published on April 7, 2020

Amidst the current situation, so many plans have been shaken, so many things which previously seemed stable now can't rely on.

I could have written that sentence at any point over the last four years, as political and societal upheaval (at least in the United Kingdom) seemed to threaten institutions and relationships we imagined were permanent. But that was nothing compared to what is happening now.

Over the past fortnight, as I and two trusted colleagues have started gifting coaching sessions to those affected by the coronavirus outbreak, just how uncertain things have got has been pushed home. Things which - at least on the surface - seemed to be within our control now seem not to be, right down to whether we can leave our homes.

This can leave us feeling like victims, like passive observers who life simply happens to, with everything out of our control.

The most challenging thing, perhaps, is that some of that last sentence is true. Much of what is happening right now is out of our control. We can't control it, we can't affect it. That, unfortunately, is the nature of the beast that is complexity.

In her brilliant (and short, and practical) book, Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How To Thrive In Complexity, Jennifer Garvey Berger talks about the ways our minds - evolved for simpler times - short circuit in complex situations. And, as I said, this situation we are in right now is a complex situation. One of the ways we short circuit is in what Garvey Berger calls 'the trap of control'. We can't control the big complex thing, so we trap ourselves by finding something else we can control and controlling that instead, even if that doesn't help us get what we want in any way.

The far better practice, says Garvey Berger, is to look at what we can do to enable good things to happen, and to look at what might enable us.

I think that's why, since I read it a couple of weeks ago, Gary Keller's Focusing Question has landed so well with me. Coming from his bestselling book, The One Thing, the Focusing Question resonated with me so much that I wrote it on a post-it and stuck it above my computer screen - something I almost never do.

The question is this: What's the ONE THING I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

That is a question which helps us enable good things to happen.

It would feel nice, right now, if we could control the things that are affecting in our lives. If we could know when we will be able to visit our loved ones, if we could know when we can leave our house. But we can't. That is the sad, sometimes tragic truth of complexity and uncertainty.

We then only have a few choices.

We have some choice in how we think. We have the freedom to interpret our existence differently, the power to choose, and we have far more power over that than we think. (You might find this useful if you want to learn more about doing that.)

And we have the choice of how we act. We can continue chasing control over things we can't control, or we can focus on enabling. We can use questions like the Focusing Question to enable good things to happen.

If we do that, then sometimes something strange will happen. Although much of life will still be complex and out of our control, taking action may shift us so we are no longer the victim. If we are stitting down, every day, and asking, 'What is the ONE THING I can do today such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unecessary?', then we will suddenly be a creator in our life. It won't just be happening to us, we will be taking part.

And then, even in the face of complexity, even though when we see our loved ones is still outside our control, somehow things are different.