Focus on what you can control!

In a Jon Bytheway talk I love to listen to, he tells us to focus on what we can control. He gives the example of him focusing and stressing and worrying too much over a basketball game. Pretty sure Karl Malone isn't staying up late at night, Oh gosh, I hope Brother Bytheway does a good job at his next fireside. You see, things that are out of our control should not rule our life.

Well today, I had a plan. Ok, I still have a plan, but the first part got a little messed up! I had a plan of waking up early, which I did, going to the pool, which I did, and swimming 30 laps, which I did not do. I'm at lap 15, and I'm a little bit tired. So I get out of the pool, get a drink of water, and check the time. Oh sweet, I thought to myself as I checked the time, it only took me 20 minutes to swim my first 15 laps. I was unsure of the time it would take me, so I gave myself 2 hours to go swimming. Well I hop back in the pool thinking, I have a whole 90 minutes to swim another 15. Heck, I could probably go more than 30. I will just swim until I'm out of time, push myself harder and harder until I can not swim no more! Well as I am prep talking myself for what I thought was going to be another long while swimming laps, I hop back in and just go for it. 15 1/2... 16, 16 1/2... then the life guard comes my way. (by the way, I am so embarrassed swimming in front of the lifeguard, because I am a BAD swimmer, and the fact that they are a lifeguard means they are good. They probably just sit on there chair, watching me attempt swimming my laps and just laugh at me!) So she comes over and says something, but I really didn't hear her. I asked her to repeat herself and she tells me I need to get out of the pool. So I get out and she tells us that a little boy threw up in the pool, so we have to get out. I am sitting by the edge of the pool for a while when she comes back and says its going to be another hour until it is safe to swim. WHAT?!?!?! I have a plan, I have to swim 30 miles, I HAVE TO SWIM!!! Well, there wasn't anything I could do about it. So out I get, back to the locker room to change, and home I go, wet hair and all, only having swum 16.5 laps (not even close to what I needed to get.) So then I thought to myself, you know what Tara... you can't control the fact that a little 4 year old boy got sick and threw up. Poor boy. So think of a new plan (which is writing this blog and then watching the Office on Hulu) and stop complaining.

Try to stop focusing on things that are out of your control. Think of what you can control, and figure out what to do with that!