By Buck Lawrimore
LifeGide Editor
Control On And Off The Field
Football Coach Ron Rivera, twice named NFL Coach of the Year, taught his young players to “Control Your APE.” He often has worn that slogan on his T-shirt at press conferences. APE stands for Attitude, Preparation and Effort. And it’s an important piece of wisdom for all of us to remember.
The football player cannot control what the other team does, including taking the ball away or blocking him in motion. He cannot control his injuries, if they occur. It’s easy for a player who has had a bad experience on the field to sit on the bench looking dejected. But if he learns to control his Attitude, Preparation and Effort, he can always give 110 percent, and thereby increase his value as a player, helping to win more games.
Control Your Attitude
A positive attitude is a huge advantage in life and a characteristic of successful people. They see the glass as half full and not half empty. They look for opportunities and see problems as challenges to be overcome. They know that winning their internal mind-control battle is key to success in life, no matter what misfortunes occur. They always give their best to whatever task they face, apply positive energy and enthusiasm, and encourage others to do the same.
Along with this positivity is an attitude of gratitude. People who consciously practice gratitude are happier and tend to be more successful. Scientific research has been conducted[1] to confirm that the practice of conscious gratitude has mental and physical health benefits. One way to do this is to take just a few minutes each day to write down in a journal or computer three things you are grateful for, especially reflecting on the day which has just passed. The more you look for things to be grateful for, the more you see them, and the happier you will be.
Control Your Preparation
You can also control your preparation for whatever you will encounter each day and each moment. Football players prepare by extensive practice, learning offensive and defensive plays, and getting in lots of reps (repetitions). In your life, you can prepare for coming events by taking a little time to think about what might happen, what you want to happen, and how you can increase the likelihood of the outcomes you desire. If it is a process like a competition in which you have participated in the past, you can prepare through regular and thorough practice. If it is a meeting with other people, you can prepare with an agenda or questions to ask. The more important the event, the more important is preparation quality and quantity.
Control Your Effort
Effort is where attitude and preparation convert into action. It’s easy for a football team that is way behind in the score to quit trying. It’s easy in your own life if you have experienced a number of setbacks or a severe one to quit trying. But wise people know that effort is essential to be successful in life, in big things and small. And effort to a large degree is a matter of will, of intentional conscious control—not just physical effort but mental, emotional and spiritual effort. Always give your best effort to succeed at whatever you encounter in life.
Control Among the Stoics
The Greek Stoics, who lived, taught and practiced in the first and second centuries, believed strongly on focusing on what one can control, and understanding what one cannot control.
The Stoic teacher Epictetus was the source for a small booklet known as Enchiridion, which means (roughly) Handbook for Living, produced by his disciple Arrian based on favorite talks Epictetus had given. Translations of this book were printed and read by many thousands of people over the years, including soldiers going to war and monks in monasteries. The very first words of the Enchiridion[2]deal with what you can and cannot control:
“Of things some are in our power, and others are not. In our powers are opinion, movement toward a thing, desire, aversion [turning from a thing]; and in a word, whatever are our own acts; not in our power are the body, property, reputation, offices [the power of public office], and in a word, whatever is not our own acts.”
In modern language we might say that Stoics believed we can control mainly three things:
- Our thoughts and opinions
- Our bodily movements
- Our desires and feelings
Today scientific research has revealed that controlling what is in our power is more complicated than the Stoics thought. This is still not common knowledge among the general public. Here is a more accurate list of what you can control:
- Your thoughts through conscious effort
- Beliefs embedded in your unconscious mind, using conscious mental programming
- Your bodily movements up to the limit of your physical abilities
- Your habits (including preparation)
- Your energy and how you direct it (including effort)
- Your feelings and attitudes through conscious effort
The reason for repeating “through conscious effort” is that most of the time most of us are running on autopilot, driven by habits buried in our subconscious minds, and in effect preventing us from exercising conscious control without special effort. In other words we lose control when we operate under System 1 or jump before checking, as noted in the previous chapter on Mind.
What You Cannot Control
It is also very important in life to understand what you cannot control. First and foremost, you cannot control other people. You might influence them, manage them or direct them, but you cannot really control them. People are not robots but have their own minds and usually are going to do what they want to do in each moment, whether you like it or not. Now if you hold a gun to someone’s head or threaten them with being fired, you can force people to do things they don’t want to do, but that is not acceptable as a standard practice. Wise people let other people be who they are and do not try to control them. Wise parents and managers use positive messages to influence the behavior of others in their charge.
Likewise you cannot control the weather or traffic or almost anything external to your own body. It is important to understand and accept this and not to obsess over the uncontrollable.
So do not attach great hopes or emotions onto other people. You can love other people, encourage and communicate with them, but you cannot truly control them. If you are a parent, you need to love and teach your children. But do not hold them too tightly or restrictively. The Stoics even had a slogan Memento Mori, which means “remember death” or “remember that you will die.” Not only will you die, but your loved ones will also die. For early Stoics, this meant “appreciate the present moment.” For early Christians, the same phrase meant “remember life after death” or “remember Heaven and avoid Hell.”
If you are a manager, you can guide and support your people. But do not micromanage or criticize them excessively.
In every situation of life, focus on what you can control. Control your thoughts as much as possible. Replace negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Control your actions and your body. Control your feelings and responses.
Importantly, you cannot control your emotional impulses when they arise in your body, mind and spirit. But you can control your feelings by how you interpret and label your emotions. This takes some effort. Understand that emotions are not just automatically triggered by some event but are actually constructed, built in the moment, according to how our brain predicts what is going to happen next.[3]
Be positive. Stay in control for a truly better life.
[1] The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life, by Shawn Achor
[2] Epictetus: Enchiridion, Dover Publications, 2004, Edited by Tom Crawford, pg. 1
[3] How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, by Lisa Feldman Barrett.