Accept the fact that you have no control in what happens

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Abstract

to show for it. Achievement is not guaranteed, just because you’ve worked the hardest.An athelete can train for 10 years and suffer an injury the night before the competition. An executive can work 50 hour weeks but end up retrenched because of the economy. A person can eat right and exercise regularly and end up with an incurable disease.The truth is things usually don’t go the way we want them to. For every end result, there are thousands of variables that need to be in place for it to happen. An athlete may win only because her key competitor fell ill a week ago and can’t prepare for the race. Maybe it was hot that day which bothered some of her competitors who are from countries with cold climates. She may lose because someone was playing loud music in her hotel that caused her to not sleep well and lose focus during the race. You get my point.What I’m trying to say here is not that there is no point in working hard, and that everyone should just let events unfold by themselves. In fact, that’ll be a surefire way of failure (unless the very off chance that every other variable wo

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rks in your favour). Working hard does improve your chances and influences the outcome. Practice and growth makes you better and sets you up for a better result. But accept that it is not the only criteria that impacts the result.This is a key principle to finding happiness. Disappointment comes when reality falls short of expectations and we can see this as a simple mathematical equation. If we can’t determine reality, the only thing we CAN do is to limit expectations.You may be thinking now that the whole point of working towards a goal is not to “avoid being disappointed”, but to hopefully attain the reward that will bring us joy. If we don’t keep our eyes on that outcome, then what do we focus on?Focus on what we can control, focus on the effort that we can make, find joy in the craft and the process of doing and learning as a result of that. If the outcome is what determines our happiness, there’s a good chance we’ll end up not being happy. Instead, if the action is what brings us joy, we will “win” regardless of the actual result.</article></body>

Accept the fact that you have no control in what happens

Everytime we read or see interviews with elite sports athletes or top business executives and they get asked their “secret to achieving greatness”, it is rare that hard work doesn’t come up as their first answer.

Even outside the arenas of sports and the corporate world, when parents are often asked about how they built such happy families, many will respond that they worked hard to keep their families together and make sure everyone’s needs are met.

Hence, it is difficult not for people to start expecting that by working hard, that they will achieve all their goals and they will as a result be happy.

The truth, however, is far from this simple. The interviews that are rarely (though they still exist if we look hard enough) featured are ones where people have worked twice as hard as the achievers, but do not end up having any results to show for it. Achievement is not guaranteed, just because you’ve worked the hardest.

An athelete can train for 10 years and suffer an injury the night before the competition. An executive can work 50 hour weeks but end up retrenched because of the economy. A person can eat right and exercise regularly and end up with an incurable disease.

The truth is things usually don’t go the way we want them to. For every end result, there are thousands of variables that need to be in place for it to happen. An athlete may win only because her key competitor fell ill a week ago and can’t prepare for the race. Maybe it was hot that day which bothered some of her competitors who are from countries with cold climates. She may lose because someone was playing loud music in her hotel that caused her to not sleep well and lose focus during the race. You get my point.

What I’m trying to say here is not that there is no point in working hard, and that everyone should just let events unfold by themselves. In fact, that’ll be a surefire way of failure (unless the very off chance that every other variable works in your favour). Working hard does improve your chances and influences the outcome. Practice and growth makes you better and sets you up for a better result. But accept that it is not the only criteria that impacts the result.

This is a key principle to finding happiness. Disappointment comes when reality falls short of expectations and we can see this as a simple mathematical equation. If we can’t determine reality, the only thing we CAN do is to limit expectations.

You may be thinking now that the whole point of working towards a goal is not to “avoid being disappointed”, but to hopefully attain the reward that will bring us joy. If we don’t keep our eyes on that outcome, then what do we focus on?

Focus on what we can control, focus on the effort that we can make, find joy in the craft and the process of doing and learning as a result of that. If the outcome is what determines our happiness, there’s a good chance we’ll end up not being happy. Instead, if the action is what brings us joy, we will “win” regardless of the actual result.