I’m pretty sure taking one’s own advice is next to impossible…I was working on a bunch of transactions this week, all dependent on what someone else said or did. I was talking to one of my friends about how she should let go and know that the best outcome will ultimately come to light and that there was no need to worry about things that either 1) haven’t happened yet, or 2) that we have no control over. We agreed that that was the best way to move forward and not simultaneously lose sleep…
Less than 24 hours later I was texting her again talking about how I hadn’t slept and I was so stressed and I didn’t know what to do. I was so worried something was going to go horribly wrong with one of these transactions. As so often happens to me, my friend texted me back, “maybe it’s time to take your own advice?”
HAH, that’s funny, my own advice. Dang, that was good advice, but it was so difficult. I kept thinking, what if I lose this client? What if this transaction falls through? What if it’s all my fault and someone gets mad at me?
Well, I can ask What if? Until I’m blue in the face, but it isn’t ultimately going to change anything. I did lose sleep and guess what? It didn’t change anything. I have no control over the future (Damn). So, what is the point of all this worrying? Nothing. It doesn’t help me plan ahead. I cannot anticipate every move that every person is going to make. Life is simply not a game of chess that you can strategize your way out of.
As you read this I am sitting at the airport on my way to our annual Thanksgiving trip (SO FREAKING EXCITED BY THE WAY). I’m looking out the windows watching the planes pulling in and out and dancing along. The luggage goes up one ramp and down the next. Never in my life have I been afraid of flying, I actually love it, but just for one millisecond I looked out there and thought, what if something happens to my plane? Well, first of all, nothing is going to happen to my plane…I’m not putting that out in the universe!! Are you crazy?! But it was so strange that I have fallen into this pattern about worrying about things I have utterly no control over and it somehow morphed into me worrying about things that have never bothered me in my life.
I get it. I have control issues. I know, I have a therapist that I pay an exorbitant amount of money to that tells me that. But sometimes, no matter how much therapy you go to, no matter how many hours you sit on that little couch going over every minuscule moment in your life it takes giving the advice you really need to someone else and then having that advice thrown back at you in order to understand.
I am a control addict. I must relinquish my control because a) I don’t know how to fly a plane so I am safer in the pilot’s hands and b) because there is simply nothing I can do about how someone else acts or things that happen in life, except control the way I react to them.
So, there. I am safe, I am protected, I am going to be okay. Do these real estate transactions that I am panicking over have any effect in the grand scheme of things? Nope, not really. There will always be another transaction, another client, another day. There will always be more opportunities and if I can go through life apologizing when I’m wrong, loving people the way they were meant to be loved and believing that it’s all going to be okay in the end, then I think that’s a pretty great realization for a Friday morning at the airport before 6am.
Happy weekend friends. I am sending love and light and hope that you too can release yourself from the burden of worrying about things that are out of your control or haven’t happen yet. You will be able to deal with things as they come and there is no amount of planning in life that will prepare you for the universe’s sometimes crazy and mostly beautiful surprises. Okay, gotta go jump on that plane now! xoxoxo
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