For most of my life I valued predictability above chaos. I wanted my goals and vision to work out in my best interests, or rather what I envisaged my best interests to be.  This meant spending lots of time planning and organising how best to achieve my goals. I would go so far as to say I hated and resisted negative surprises and certainly did not see any silver lining behind every cloud; on the contrary, it was a continuous source of frustration when my expectations were not met.

As I reflect on my life, I have come to realise that this put a lot of pressure on me. I was trying to make life fit into my expectations rather than going with the flow, which I always thought was a much too passive way to live.

However, through much painful growth and many good teachers, often other business leaders who had the same challenges, I have come to understand and experience the benefits of trusting and believing life is working out exactly as it should for my growth. This is now bringing me much better results, both in terms of business and my peace of mind, than I ever thought possible when I was over-striving to get the results I believed I needed.

There has to be a better way

I was delighted when this topic came up at a recent peer leadership coaching forum. It was amazing how many of the leaders had the same experiences I had. Each had spent much time drawing up detailed plans to support their business strategies and had many meetings and discussions to figure out why the outcomes were not materialising as fast or in the way they believed they should. Yet despite this frustration, they were all successful leaders.

We concluded that it is a condition of the entrepreneur and professional leader, if not of human nature in general, to strive to control outcomes. That is why we are successful; however, the cost is often ongoing frustration and anxiety.

What was most surprising to many in the group was how they had each come to the conclusion that there must be a better way to experience life while achieving the potential their business possessed. They instinctively knew that you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. The challenge for us all is to continue to achieve but with a new mindset of going with the flow.

The following is a short summary of their insights and future action plans.

• Relax more and trust that life, whether personal or business, is evolving as it should.
• Learn to work with what you can change and trust that opportunities will manifest themselves to tackle outstanding issues when the time is right.
• At the same time continue to have goals and strategies to achieve them but be open to unexpected opportunities. That way you get the best of both worlds with a lot less stress.
• When you focus more on your own leadership growth and the growth of your employees, you are better equipped to take advantage of opportunities when they become available.
• It is no cliché that problems are opportunities in disguise. However, you will only see that if you have a mindset that welcomes problems as opportunities for both personal and business growth.
• That the only aspect of business and life where you have complete control is how you respond to what life throws at you. That is why changing the word responsibility to ‘the ability to respond’ makes so much sense.
• We are all capable of living with ambiguity. We can live with a level of trust in the process of life as well as knowing that ‘God helps those who help themselves’.

How could you reduce your personal stress at work around controlling the outcomes?