You are to blame for everything.

Sorry to break it to you, but everything going wrong in your life is your fault. Now slap yourself in the face and hang your head in shame.

Only joking.

Unfortunately though, there is some truth to what I am saying. I always remember at school there was a talk by a leading sports psychologist who came in to speak before exams (specifically A levels for my British brethren) to talk about how to deal with stress and how to effectively revise to achieve the best grades possible.

He said several things that have stuck with me today years later, but I just wanted to focus on one idea that if you truly embrace it, will literally change your life.

He began by saying that stress is inevitable but that the best way to view stressors is to basically divide them into two categories; things that you can control and things that you can't. As he said focus on "controlling the controllables", by that he means for things that you can control, do everything in your power to resolve them and by doing that you will alleviate the stress, not only because ideally the very issue that was causing stress has been resolved but also because your action at the very least will make the issue easier to manage.

For things you can't control, learn to embrace the fact that there is nothing you can do about them, and that the energy you put into stressing about it is a complete waste and will only lead to more problems.

Wow, I thought. That is genuinely great advice and something I took onboard almost immediately.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you have heard similar advice before so I'm not claiming to be blowing anyone's mind here but I just wanted to add to that with my own perspective over half a decade later.

The unfortunate truth is that pretty much all of your life is down to you and your actions. Both the good and bad.

Now, I'm not saying this to make you feel bad about your current situation in life. Believe me, I'm going through a tough spell at the moment too. However, what I am trying to tell you is that, even if you are in a situation that is not necessarily your doing and that there may be undoubtedly some external factors, all the power to get yourself out of it is in your hands, and trust me, noone else is going to get you out of it.

I'll give you a few examples.

At the moment at least, my country (England) is in lockdown due to the Coronavirus pandemic, as I know most other countries are too. As a result of the pandemic, I lost my job because the business quite simply couldn't operate. I lost my flat, because my other flatmate literally did a runner the first night of lockdown and stopped paying rent so I had to leave as I couldn't pay his share too. I lost my girlfriend although admittedly this wasn't Covid related, this was just hilariously bad timing (the day before lockdown and 2 weeks before my birthday by the way).

Now on the surface, it would be quite easy for me to adopt the initial advice that psychologist told me and disregard the uncontrollable factors like the global pandemic and just calmly accept everything that was coming my way and focus on what I can control.

Yet the reality is, I could've (and still can) control every aspect of what happened above, and all of the issues in my life can be affected directly my actions.

While I couldn't have stopped the pandemic, I could've made harder choices earlier on and been more proactive looking for a different job that that would have alleviated my financial worries for example. I could have seen the issues with my relationship earlier and pulled the plug myself.

Instead of seeing yourself as a passenger to how your life turns out, be under no illusions that you are the captain and everything that happens to you is completely in your control.

The point of this idea is not to shame you into feeling bad that you are not where you want to be in your life but rather to empower you to understand that you can 100% improve your life starting from right now if you understand that you are more in control than you think.

Miss out on a promotion at work? Or feel that you aren't progressing as much as you should be. The original advise that the psychologist told me would make me think that I'm not in control of what my boss thinks and does and therefore I shouldn't stress about it.

Wrong.

You can't dictate what other people think and do of course. However, you can do everything in your power to influence their decisions. Work twice as hard at work and improve the odds in your favour of getting promoted to 99% (with the 1% being the completely irrational decision your boss would have to make not to promote you).

In relationships, yes you can't make someone fall in love with you or not leave you. Yet you can still do everything in your power to be the best possible partner through being nice, generous etc. (I'm not going to list everything here, that's an article for a different time).

Once you take true responsibility for everything in your life then you feel truly empowered and hopeful for the future. The only person you can completely rely on every single time in your life is yourself. If you leave your fate in the hands of others then you will always be disappointed.

Your career, your relationships and even your health are all in your control. Instead of viewing factors in your life as 50/50 in terms of in your control and out of it. Change that from today to 99% in your control. If you do everything in your power, and I mean absolutely everything you can possibly do to affect that 99% then you will progress way further than you previously believed was possible.

If you look at relationships for example. If you aren't having success attracting the opposite sex (or the same, whatever your preference) , it might be easier to accept that it must be something wrong with that person and that you'll find someone else. No, I'm sorry there is a big possibility there's something wrong with you.

Was your hygiene completely up to scratch? Were your clothes clean? Did you smell nice? Did you act in a vulgar way?

It's one thing to accept bad things as something you can't control and to then be stress-free as a result. While this may be a somewhat liberating feeling, it won't necessarily lead to the best outcomes.

If we elaborate within the context of relationships further, I would never suggest compromising on who you are as a person in terms of your core principles and your values. However, you need to be brutally honest with yourself and address flaws (that we all have) that are objectively bad. For example, it doesn't matter who you are, what your style is or what your innate personality is. We can all agree that basic hygiene is a must. That means shower, brush your teeth everyday, wear deodorant. If I need to elaborate anymore here then you're in serious trouble.

If you let pride get in the way and just tell yourself that I am who I am and everyone has to deal with it then again while in principle this may be a liberating mindset for a while, it will not ultimately result in the best outcomes for yourself in the long term. It just won't.

Don't believe me? Think about past relationships you have had. Now look at yourself hard and just identify one trait that you know deep down is bad and that may hold you back. I'll give you one that I am aware of myself. I occasionally smoke, particularly on a night out. For anyone who doesn't smoke, you will know that when someone has a cigarette and you haven't, the person who has will stink of smoke, both their clothes and their breath. I am well aware of this since I have reduced my smoking and have been the recipient of the incoming avalanche of smokey stink when people come back in from outside having smoked.

Now, I could look at myself and go, hey if I want to smoke I'll smoke and there's noone who can tell me otherwise, I'm perfect just the way I am!

Wrong.

A lot of people hate smoking (understandably) and would immediately be put of by the habit. That doesn't make them shallow, it's a perfectly valid preferrence.

Now when you look at things logically I have two options. Potentially reap the benefit of attracting a fantastic woman to be my girlfriend and avoid smoking or be stubborn and just enjoy the short term satisfaction of a cigarette.

The obvious decision is to choose option 1.

As I mentioned above, the decision not to smoke is not compromising on my values or principles at all. I am still being true to myself but the difference is I have taken responsibility for how I present myself to the world having taken into consideration what are some objectively negative traits that I have and actively worked on addressing them to achieve a better outcome.

To bring it back to the initial advise I was given. The first message would have told me, "hey the woman who just walked away from you in disgust has nothing to do with you. You can't control how people think, don't worry about it!". When in reality, you can control 99% of how people think about you based on what you do.

The advice to control the controllables is absolutely a valid one and will genuinely change your life. However, my own perspective is that in nearly all situations you can actually do something about it to change the outcome in your favour. The added line that I believe is really crucial to add is that you can control about 99% of what happens in your life. Therefore, you need to be as proactive as you can to action that 99%.

Yes, this is a daunting prospect and one that may seem exhausting. Don't see it like that.

See it as an opportunity to change your life and achieve literally whatever you want. Again there are limitations. That 1% that no matter what you do will not happen. For example, I am about 6 foot (on a good day) and will literally never be the tallest person who ever lived. There is nothing I can do about that. However, you might hear people say "oh I'm 6 foot so I could never become a professional basketball player", based on the perception that the NBA is exclusively for exceptionally tall people. This is often given up as an example of accepting your limitations.

How then is the shortest NBA player ever 5 foot 3?

Did he just accept that his dream of being a successful athlete was out of his control. No, he proactively addressed every single aspect of the sport that he could control and made it impossible for others not to pick him in his team due to his skill and not his height.

That's how you should live your life in my humble opinion. He (his name is Muggsy Bogues by the way, check him out) did not accept that his height, a seemingly unchangeable characteristic would be his downfall. Whatever you think is holding back, or whomever you think is holding you back isn't. Only you are, because you have convinced yourself that it is not possible. Anything is possible if you believe it is. Reset your perspective and take a leaf out of Muggsy Bogues' book.

Whatever external factor you have identified as being a hinderance to you, is only a hinderance because you have given it far too much power over you. You are never helpless, something can always be done even if it doesn't feel like it.

I'm not writing this again because I want people to feel bad, particularly those who are going through a tough time as I know many of you are. I just want people to know that you can make your life awesome if you take complete responsibility for everything in it.

Ask any athlete if they think they will win before they compete. I guarantee if anyone of them says no, then they will be the one to lose. They have already accepted their fate. That's what living your life like you're not in control is doing. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you think you are not in control, you won't be.

Seize that control back and relentlessly act on improving the 99% of your work life, your social life and your health and I guarantee that your life will be better or your money back.

Peace.