What you can control

In her book Reasons Not to Worry, Brigid Delaney writes, “…there are only three things in our complete control and these are our character; our reactions and actions; and how we treat others.”

Everything else we can either control to some extent or not at all.

You can control how much effort you put into a project but not how people react to it.

You can control whether you are kind to someone or not, but not whether or not they will choose to reciprocate.

Much undue anxiety stems from sweating over matters that are out of our hands.

With this in mind, it makes sense to focus our attention primarily on doing work and treating others in a way that we’re proud of.

As for how the world will respond, it actually helps to be somewhat indifferent. Of course, we want to hope for the best outcome but ultimately whatever happens after we’ve put our best foot forward is out of our hands.

This is somewhat akin to what Cal Newport calls the “craftsman mindset” in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, which suggests that you often arrive at your best work when you “[focus] on what you can offer the world [instead of] what the world can offer you.”

Not only that but fully embracing the reality of what you can and cannot control often brings an unexpected sense of peace and a path forward for you to be kinder to yourself.