No-fuss anxiety tips #14
Take control
Welcome to the 14th blog in this series of short articles focussing on simple tips and techniques for managing anxiety. Each tip draws upon therapeutic thinking from a range of psychological and psychotherapy theories and is designed to offer you a no-nonsense way to find greater ease in your life, rather than feeling imprisoned by anxiety.
What these tips won’t do is explore the origins and purpose of anxiety for you – this type of deeper exploration is what therapy offers. That said, having strategies for managing anxiety is a great place to start. Each article is designed to be a quick read, and with practical implementable ideas. Let’s take a look at our next tip, then: take control.
What do you have control over in life? Do you believe you can control what happens to you? These questions are getting to the heart of something we call your “locus of control”.
What do you have control over?
Anxiety feel like you’re out of control, overwhelmed.
Getting clear on what you do and don’t have control over can help with decision making and taking charge of your life.
Your locus of control is the way you evaluate your abilities to change or affect your situation. It’s a sense of how much control you have to make a difference. Perhaps you have an external locus of control? An external locus of control is where we place any sense of control outside of ourselves. We believe things happen there is little we can do to affect the outcome of what happens to us. Such a belief is anxiety provoking – as we come to believe ourselves as incapable of changing what happens to us. Our focus is only on the things outside of us that force events upon us, and we believe we have very little control over our own destiny and experience.
Alternatively, you might have an internal locus of control? If so, somewhere you’ll be carrying a belief that you have the capacity and capabilities to take pro-active steps towards your own happiness and success and can exercise autonomy and control over some of what happens to you.
Once you have an internal local of control, you can take stock of what is in your power to change and influence, and what lies outside of our control. Awareness of the differences here can then help us to just focus on what we can influence.
Things you do have control over include:
What you say.
How you behave.
What you choose to believe.
How you spend your leisure time.
Yes, there are always things that are truly outside of our control (e.g. the weather and other people’s thoughts and opinions, for example). However, if you have a strong external locus of control, it’s unlikely you’ll see areas of your life where you can make a difference.
We can’t control the weather. We can’t control what other people feel or think.
We can exercise control over our behaviours, speech and how we spend our time.
Try cultivating an inner locus of control by noting what skills, abilities and strengths you do have. Notice what choices you do have. Notice where you do have the ability to take pro-active steps towards your own happiness. If you can develop your internal locus of control, external events seem less daunting, less frightening, less anxiety provoking because you will have options about what you do, what you think and what you believe, even when events are outside of your control.
To help develop your repertoire of managing anxiety, look out for more blogs within this series. If you’re considering speaking with a counsellor about anxiety, do get in touch. We can work together through online counselling or through face-to-face counselling at my therapy room in Preston.