Stressing about things I can't control

[jerryB]

My biggest problem in life and as an entrepreneur: stressing about things I cannot control.
I stress constantly about everything. About getting new clients, about taxes, about my website.. like literally mind my is being constantly occupied by these things I have none control over.

I'm a perfectionist. Whenever something goes wrong or not according to my plan, or something unexpected comes up - I literally stress like crazy and think about it constantly, and I can't let it go. And these things literally happen all the time in business - unexpected things come up on regular basis.

Seriously, how do I let it go?

 

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[MTF]

Study and practice Stoicism.

The easiest introduction is a Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine.

 

[Antifragile]

Stress while you are grinding to make it is normal. It means you care.

The better question is: “are you being effective at building your business?”

Or is your stress and self proclaimed “perfectionist” behaviour preventing you from doing well? Meaning, is this stress counter productive or productive?

Every entrepreneur has to worry about their marketing, product, taxes etc. It comes with the territory. That’s part of life. When things go wrong and you can’t let it go, ask yourself “why?”

Give us some specific examples of things you couldn’t let go. Maybe someone on the forum can help.

Good luck.

 

[MitchC]

How do I let it go?

I find writing everything that’s stressing me, everything I’m worried about etc, down on a piece of paper makes a huge difference.

It gets those thoughts out of your head so they stop spinning in circles.

Then once they are on the paper you can look at them very objectively and see just how small they really are.

Getting out and taking a break is good too.

Go for a run and listen to an interesting podcast, or workout and listen to music.

Ride a JetSki.

Climb a mountain.

Just do something that takes enough of your attention and focus that you can’t think of anything else.

Something that forces you to be present.

Kind of like how meditation makes you present, except if you try to meditate while you are like this, you are just going to sit there with spinning thoughts, so this active form of mediation/being present instead.

I had a really stressful 10 days the other week where I was on the phone daily getting so frustrated and angry at freight companies, and dealing with 100s of customer complains because of them. I was doing my best but I was not handling it well.

I said to my girlfriend there’s no point being home trying to sort this I need to get out, we went to the beach and honestly when we were leaving I laughed when I remembered what I was dealing with, I said see, I told you I just needed to get out to the beach. It was like a night and day difference to get out and see that life was still there to enjoy and all that other shit did not matter.

 

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[Mattie]

My biggest problem in life and as an entrepreneur: stressing about things I cannot control.
I stress constantly about everything. About getting new clients, about taxes, about my website.. like literally mind my is being constantly occupied by these things I have none control over.

I'm a perfectionist. Whenever something goes wrong or not according to my plan, or something unexpected comes up - I literally stress like crazy and think about it constantly, and I can't let it go. And these things literally happen all the time in business - unexpected things come up on regular basis.

Seriously, how do I let it go?

It's letting go of perfectionism. I used to be the same way. Understand you can't control everything in life or the world. You can't control what other people do, what they think, or what they say. You can't control every outcome. Accept you live in an imperfect world, with imperfect people, and imperfect outcomes. Otherwise if your looking for perfectionism in everything it can be quite painful because no one can live up to the expectations you place on them any more then you can live up to their expectations. Then you have to look at whether the expectations are realistic in the first place.

If they are then certainly to some degree we aim for certain things in life, but often we can be to much of a perfectionist. It's finding the balance some here along the line where it's reasonable.

 

[Ismail941]

Take a white paper and make a contrast about like this: "I can control this" and "I cannot control this"
It's kinda like: Lagging Indicator and Leading Indicator - Google it to get familiar
When you do this, have it in your pocket and review them before going to bed at night.
It will program you eventually and make it a perfect narrative for you. Ita gonna take time to work for you!

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Read "Letting Go" by David Hawkins. It is a great study in "letting go" of the things we cannot control. And yes, it is pretty much a hard discipline, but necessary if you expect to be unexpected.

 

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[Jerma]

Great resource for stress I use often

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntfcfJ28eiU

 

[Jobless]

Are you sure you can't control these factors, or could you hire someone to do it for you, or to free up your own time to deal with them?

 

[starttoday123]

I highly recommend the Neurocycle app. It's just 15 min each morning that you have to listen to the app audio and write down your answers for the day. It's real work but it produces real change/results. Otherwise, just find a way to work on this that works for you and you'll find your way through. The trick our mind plays on us is that it'll go away without putting too much work into it and that it's not a big deal.

 

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[K1 Lambo]

My biggest problem in life and as an entrepreneur: stressing about things I cannot control.
I stress constantly about everything. About getting new clients, about taxes, about my website.. like literally mind my is being constantly occupied by these things I have none control over.

I'm a perfectionist. Whenever something goes wrong or not according to my plan, or something unexpected comes up - I literally stress like crazy and think about it constantly, and I can't let it go. And these things literally happen all the time in business - unexpected things come up on regular basis.

Seriously, how do I let it go?

It's part of the game man. That's the reality of being an entrepreneur. It will never disappear. No matter how successful you are. Truth is, the more successful you become, the more stressed out you're gonna be because now you got responsibilities with 100 employees and you're the one who's responsible for putting food on their table and paying their bills.

Sometimes the problem happens because you're thinking so much of your future instead of focusing on what you can control now and do at this moment. It's a common thing with ambitious people. It's like playing a video game and you start at level 1 and you compare yourself to guys who are at level 250 or 300. There's no point in doing that, you're destroying yourself mentally.

Just accept is as reality. Acceptance for what things are has really worked for me. It doesn't mean that you don't change or become a victim of reality; You do take action and move towards something but you understand that there are some things that are out of your control. Client didn't respond to your email? You did your job. You controlled that. You can't control directly if they're gonna respond. You can control it indirectly by improving your pitch or by making slight adjustments.

OR

You may also lack discipline in your life. Not saying this is you, but the reason why 95% of people feel out of control is because they lack self discipline and can't hold themselves accountable for their actions. Discipline is the key to life.

They keep braking promises that they make to themselves constantly and suddenly they start to lose control of their lives or at least they start to perceive it as that. And guess what? What you think is your reality is your reality. It all starts with the little compromises: you skip the gym once this week, you make 10 less calls that you were supposed to make today or you eat that chocolate chip cookie WHEN YOU know that's not gonna help you with losing weight. Over time, these little things will compound and now your confidence is out the door.

 

[BaiAnrui]

Study and practice Stoicism.

The easiest introduction is a Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine.

Great Book!

 

[jerryB]

Thanks for the answers, fellas.

I guess my biggest problem is worrying too much about the future - worrying about this and that and the other.. Worrying about not getting enough clients, about messing up something with taxes, and about many things I have none control over - I tend to worry mostly about those things. If I can't control it, I'm beginning to worry in order to get that false sense of being in control of the situation. I guess as an entrepreneur I have to cope with the fact that it's not a 9-5 job, and there's no boss above me who's going to be there for me if I mess something up. I'm all alone in this.

For some people this stress/worrying means they're more productive. For me it's just the opposite - once I start worrying/thinking about the future, my discipline goes to trash, projects that I'm working on begin to suffer.

I have this urgent need to be in control of every detail of my business, of my life and have a really low tolerance for uncertainty. I have to be sure that thing's are going my way. And I'm aware that as an entrepreneur you never know 100% what's going to happen. It's like a rollercoaster, especially when you're beginning.

Honestly, I'd just like to give less shit about things. Just leave them as they are, not think about them.
How do you get to that point?

 

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[Guyfieri5]

My biggest problem in life and as an entrepreneur: stressing about things I cannot control.
I stress constantly about everything. About getting new clients, about taxes, about my website.. like literally mind my is being constantly occupied by these things I have none control over.

I'm a perfectionist. Whenever something goes wrong or not according to my plan, or something unexpected comes up - I literally stress like crazy and think about it constantly, and I can't let it go. And these things literally happen all the time in business - unexpected things come up on regular basis.

Seriously, how do I let it go?

I've used perfectionism as an action fake for years. Every time I want to start something whether it be a business or weight lifting I have the intense urge to spend months reading about it first. Had to cut that out and learn to let go sometimes. Screwing up is just a part of life. I've never really let go and have learned that those emotions of anxiety are a normal reaction to the uncertainty of putting yourself out there and possibly screwing up somehow. After a while, that anxiety has gotten less intense.