Take Control, Part Five

Take Control, Part Five To Succeed, You Must Let Others Control You at Times “Control is so far from being bad that a person who is sane and in very good condition does not resent good, positive control and is himself able to administer* good, positive control to people and objects. “A person who is not in very good condition resents even the most casual directions and is actually not capable of controlling people or objects. The latter person is also inefficient and has many difficulties with work and with life. “When a person cannot control things or when he resists things controlling him he involves himself with difficulties not only with people but with objects. It is also apparent that people with control difficulties more readily become ill and fail in other ways.” -- L. Ron Hubbard (*administer: provide, dispense, give) How do you feel when people give you orders or directions? For example, if you are a business owner or executive, you need to let your staff members control your time. For example, they may need to set your appointments or control where you go and who you see. If you don't let them control your time, you can become overwhelmed and inefficient. As another example, Joe asks his wife to handle the family finances. Yet when she tries to control Joe's spending, he argues about it. He spends the money however he likes despite his wife's efforts to control spending. The couple's credit goes bad. They constantly fight. They blame money problems for their marriage problems when the real problem is with Joe's inability to be controlled. You see examples of this every day. A young man leaves the Army because he hates being bossed around. He tries to work at a car dealership, but leaves because he hates being bossed around. He fails at several other jobs as he hates control. He can't even stand driving a truck as shippers want to control him. He prefers the “freedom” of homelessness and dies from a drug overdose. If you have a problem with control, you might feel a reactive irritation or anger when someone tries to control you. You may think being controlled is a sign of weakness or failure. You see no benefit to being controlled. Yet if you decide to let someone help you, you must then let them control you. For example, a dental patient needs help with her bad teeth and lets the dentist control her dental care. A failing basketball player needs help with his shooting and lets his coach control his practice routine. A business owner with low profit accepts help from a consultant and lets the consultant guide his actions. If the person who is controlling you also knows how to use control, as described in the previous four articles on control, you succeed. Receiving Good, Positive Control Positive control is not forced on you. You trust that the person wishes you success, not harm. You know his or her control is for your benefit. Positive control from others can improve all parts of your life. For example, a good accountant controls you to stay on the right side of the tax laws. If you are a professional singer, your agent controls you to improve your income. If you are an employee, your boss controls you to improve your performance. When you are a customer, you must let the store, restaurant or business control you so you get what you want. When you are a medical patient, your health depends on letting doctors and nurses control you. As a citizen, you can be part of an orderly society when you let government representatives take control. Husbands and wives must give and accept control from each other. Parents need to let their children control them at times. Even managers must let employees control them when it is right for the group. Positive control moves you in a positive direction. You end up with more money, success and joy than if you tried to keep control a one-way street. You happily accept control when you know it is for your benefit. We all need to give and receive control to get the most from life. Summary: All Five Steps to Taking Control “The whole feeling of self-confidence and competence actually derives from one's ability to control or leave uncontrolled the various items and people in his surroundings.” -- L. Ron Hubbard 1. Take a look at all your areas of worry and stress. Make a list of the situations in which you feel a lack of confidence or competence. Include all aspects of your job or life in which you need better control. List your concerns down the left side of a page. Leave room next to each problem to write solutions. 2. Now check if some of these problems are far outside your zone of operation. Last week's article, “Take Control, Part Four” addressed the need to stop trying to control these problems. Write, “Stop trying to control this” next to each of these. You can still have some influence on these matters if you wish, and you may extend your responsibility and sphere of control some day. Yet for now, if it is not your responsibility to control it, stop trying. 3. For the remaining problems, ask yourself if you should be letting someone else control you somehow. If so, write what types of control you need to accept, even encourage, from others. Plan to tell them. 4. With the remaining problems, write if the problem is with you starting something, changing something or stopping something. This was covered in “Taking Control, Part Three.” Then write down what you could do. How could you start it or change it or stop it? What else could you do? 5. Carry out your plan for each problem and you will take control of your success, your life and your future! For more information about taking better control, read The Problems of Work by L. Ron Hubbard. You can also visit www.tipsforsuccesscoaching.org for a free, private interactive website that helps you put all five “Take Control” articles into use. Let us know how you like this website!   Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you. Copyright © 2009 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here. For permission to copy, print or post this article, go to www.tipsforsuccess.org/reprint_info.htm or click here. Take better control of your life with the TipsForSuccess coaching website at www.tipsforsuccesscoaching.org. or click here.

 

Take Control, Part Four

Take Control, Part Four If You Try to Control People or Things Outside Your Sphere of Operation, You Get Problems "However, control in itself is not an entire answer to everything, for if it were one would have to be able to control everything, not only in his own job, but in an office or on earth, before he could be happy." "When an individual attempts to extend control far beyond his active interest in a job or in life he encounters difficulty." "Thus there is obviously another factor involved than control. This factor is willingness not to control and is fully as important as control itself." -- L. Ron Hubbard For example, when the manager of Department A tries to control employees in Department B, problems come up. As long as he sticks to controlling his sphere of operation, which is Department A, all is well. You may have felt overwhelmed in the past when you tried to control something that was not part of your sphere of operation. If it is not your responsibility, why bother? For example, a business owner was overwhelmed and stressed out. His consultant, who knew this technology on control, had him list all the things he was concerned about. ● Business income was down ● The roof was leaking in the office building ● His son was having problems at college in another state ● His community club meetings were irregular ● His quarterly tax payments were late The client was trying to fix all of these problems without success. The consultant pointed out only the first problem was in his sphere of operation. His income was low because he was not spending much time working. All the other problems were outside his zone. The landlord was in charge of the roof. The son was twenty years old and now on his own. While the client was the former president of his community club, he no longer was in charge. He was just a member. His accountant was negotiating a deal with the Internal Revenue Service and didn't feel the client needed to pay the overdue tax. While it would be wonderful if the client could control all of these problems, he needed to change his mind and let others control them. As soon as he realized this, he relaxed. He focused on his income and soon solved the first problem. Meanwhile, the landlord installed the new roof. His son realized he was responsible for his own success, good or bad, and started doing better in college. He stopped attending the community club meetings. His accountant solved the IRS problem. People may try to make you control things outside your zone of operation. You must refuse. Three examples: Someone asks you for a loan to pay his bills. You say, "While I'm sorry you can't pay your bills, I'm not going to pay them for you. You need to solve this yourself." Your sister sees your grandson watching television and tells you, "Don't let him watch TV." You say, "I agree he shouldn't watch TV, but he's my daughter's son, not mine." Your boss asks you to go fix the sales problem with another department. You say, "Even though I'm the domestic sales manager, I'll be happy to fix the international sales department . . . if you promote me to Vice President of Worldwide Sales." Recommendations 1. Make a list of areas in your life that are difficult for you to control. 2. Add a list of things that bother you to the first list. 3. Circle all the items that are outside your sphere of operation. 4. Decide to stop trying to control these circled items. Let them go. 5. Work on the remaining items on your list as you can control them. For example, a coworker slurps his coffee each morning. It drives you crazy! You drop hints and make jokes, but he still slurps away. You realize the coworker's noise is outside your sphere of operation and so you stop all efforts to make him stop slurping. You focus on your job instead. You soon realize you don't care about the slurping noise any longer. No more stress! The above exercise, and all the text from "Take Control" parts 1, 2 and 3 can be found at www.tipsforsuccesscoaching.org.   Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you. Copyright © 2009 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.

 

FW: How Do You Handle Life's Roadblocks?

How Do You Handle Life's Roadblocks? When you are stopped while trying to accomplish something, how do you respond? How do you handle the frustration? For example, you want to be a professional piano player. You take piano lessons, practice for two hours every day and learn as many songs as possible. You play at a friend's wedding and feel ignored. You audition to play at your church services, but do not get selected. Your mother even says, “Maybe you should take up water colors.” What do you do? Maybe you cry and feel sorry for yourself. “Boo-hoo! I feel so bad!” Perhaps you blame others. “My teachers were so bad that I'll never succeed.” Or maybe you blame yourself. “I'm such an idiot! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Many people like to drown their sorrows. “To heck with it! I'm getting drunk.” Some prefer depression or apathy. “Life isn't worth living. I'm going to watch TV all day.” Finding excuses is popular. “My fingers were sore.” “The music is too old.” “People just don't appreciate fine piano playing.” And of course, many people just give up. “I'm not going to play the stupid piano. In fact, piano players are losers.” How do you handle life's roadblocks? Intention “Intention is like a landmark.” “If you were traveling through unfamiliar country toward a snow-capped mountain, you would find that you sometimes took a wrong turn, but as long as you could see the mountain, you would make progress toward it. Sometimes obstacles would get in your way. Sometimes they would even hide the mountain from you. But there is one thing that would not happen. You would not forget to look for the mountain. You would know that you could not reach the mountain by forgetting its existence. You would laugh at the idea of forgetting to look for the mountain.” -- L. Ron Hubbard For example, despite the obstacles, you would not lose sight of your goal to be a piano player. You would ignore the losses and stay focused on the goal. “I will become a fabulous pianist! I'm going to take 200 lessons and practice for four hours a day until I make it.” Luckily, using intention is not difficult. Constantly looking for the mountain is easy. You just look! Your feet then follow your eyes. As another example, you own a restaurant and have the goal of $10,000 profit per month. You figure out you will need 200 happy, satisfied customers per day to reach your goal. You keep this mountain in mind at all times. One day, your chef calls and says, “I got a better job in New York and I'm leaving today. Good luck to you.” You realize you'll be cooking a lot of food today and feel like closing the doors and going to a movie instead. Yet you look for your mountain. You see 200 happy customers. You intend to reach the goal. You suddenly remember your mother is a great cook. She has been offering to help out, so you ask her to take over the kitchen for a few days. She agrees and doesn't even want any pay! You run an ad and hire a new chef by the weekend. You continue hiking up the mountain. Recommendations 1. Write down your top three goals. If you do not have three top goals, write down three big things you really want. 2. Put these goals where you will see them several times each day. For example, a note taped on your car's dashboard. A note on your computer screen. A postcard in your shirt pocket. A sticker on the inside of your wallet. Anywhere you will constantly see the goal. 3. Every time you get stopped by life's roadblocks, do not get sad. Do not give up. Do not look for excuses. Instead, just look at your goals. Never forget to look for the mountain. If you constantly look for the mountain, you will persist. You will work to reach it, day and night. You will find the time and energy it takes to reach the top. No obstacle will be big enough nor strong enough to stop you. Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you. Copyright © 2009 TipsForSuccess.org. All rights reserved. Grateful acknowledgment is made to L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.