Take Control Amidst Chaos | How to Take Control | Mastering Control Techniques @traviasteward

This is Lead with Confidence Now, the podcast dedicated to helping you grow your confidence and live your best life. I'm Travia Steward, and for the past 27 years, I've been on a mission to help you reinvent your relationships and career. My goal with this podcast is to show up for you so that you can rock your own world with the confidence to make that big change in your life you've been wanting to make. Travia Steward. What's up, my peeps? Happy Podcast Thursday. I don't know about for you, but I know for me, it has been feeling like the world itself has been on a roller coaster ride. The news, social media, even our day-to-day conversations, like it all has felt like this unstoppable rollercoaster ride on the way to Crazy Town, which pulls us into whatever emotion that happens to be in the air. But here's something that I've been reminding myself of lately, and I wanted to share it with you today. So in each moment, we can choose exactly who we want to be, how we want to react to something, how we actually want to show up. And I think a lot of people, myself included, fall into the habit of reacting to life as if it's happening to us instead of for us. Because it's easy to get pulled into this exact mindset. You could be on your phone one minute, endlessly scrolling, and then suddenly you're feeling the panic and the angst of the world, of social media, of your friends, of your family. One minute you're fine, the next minute You might be crying and you don't even know why, why you're filled with the emotions that you're filled with, because we are all so easily influenced when we are not in control of who we're being and how we're feeling. And what I've learned through all of this is in those moments, we can actually have a choice of who we wanna be, a choice that can transform everything by asking a simple question. Who do I want to be right now in this moment? And this question is so incredibly powerful because I know for me, it can pull me, it can pull you out of a funk and remind us that we actually have options and help us to be the kind of people that we actually want to be no matter what is going on around us. And for some, the last couple of weeks have felt very heavy. I found myself caught up in the, you know, one negative story after another, And before I knew it, I was completely continuously in my head feeling anxious and feeling frustrated. But because I'm aware of how I'm feeling, I caught myself in going, I'm tired of feeling like this. I'm tired of being someone that I don't recognize. And again, I use this work with myself. So the question I ask myself regularly, several times a day, even today, is who do I want to be right now? How do I want to show up? Well, that answer is simple. I want to be calm. I want to be optimistic. I want to be excited, and I don't want to be that person adding to any panic or angst. So those of you who listened to last week's episode know that I've gotten off of Facebook because I want to control the input of what's coming into my, my brain, my life. I want to control how I feel, and so I change my environment. So the second you realize something is contributing to motivating you to feel some kind of way that you don't want to feel, immediately change that environment, which can be as easy as moving from one room to another, turning the TV off, going from inside of the house to outside of the house. Because one of the things that I love right now, I'm in Arizona, it's November, and the weather has finally gotten to this perfect temperature that we all love so very much when we're in Arizona. And And that's why a lot of us live here is because we love this time of year. And so for me, it's been not working in my office. It's been getting out and going on the patio. It's been getting out, going to like a brewery, working on their patio, working inside where there's life going on. Because sometimes we're caught being by ourselves in our homes, in our office, at work, whatever that is. And if we are isolating ourselves, then that's when I find that it's harder to control that environment. I know for me at least. So I go out and go, what is it that I can be grateful for? How can I remind myself looking around at life? So I take a deep breath. I remind myself of what's great about my life. What's great about who I am and how I'm showing up. What's great about the difference that I'm making in other people's lives. So this is something that I want you to think about doing. When you find yourself in these moments of going, I don't like who I'm being, I don't like how I'm feeling right now, and take a deep breath. Maybe shift your environment, go outside of your office, go outside of your house, and then remind yourself, look around. What is it that you can be grateful for? Because I believe it's all in perspective and it's not in, you know, some people will be like, oh, you're just ignoring, you know, reality. It's not about ignoring the reality around you. It's actually choosing very intentionally how you want to show up within that reality. You see, that one decision, that one question can change your entire day, your entire week, your entire life. And I want to help remind you that you don't have to let the world, outside circumstances control your experiences or your reactions to the things that happen around you, around us. So here's the lesson. In every moment, no matter how intense, no matter how stressful, We get to choose how we want to respond and who we want to be. That may look like being the person who cracks a joke to lighten the mood, being the person who just breaks out into a dance or something to lighten the mood, to shift the focus. It can just be you saying something optimistic when everyone else seems to maybe have given in to the negativity. And look, I get it. It's not always easy. There are days when anxiety creeps up. There are days when you feel like you just can't control it, where it's engulfing you, and it feels like, "I just can't get out of this. It's impossible for me to shake it." But that's exactly when asking this question becomes the most powerful thing you can do in that moment. And it's in those challenging moments that we get to dig deep and decide, "Who do I want to be right now? How How do I want to show up? How do I want to impact the people around me, the people I get to interact with? Because the truth is, we are all in the driver's seat of our lives. We're all in the driver's seat of our own being. Even if the world feels out of control, like we're on that roller coaster to Crazy Town, our response doesn't have to be. So here's my challenge for you. The next time you find yourself in the midst of this roller coaster ride, you feel like you can't get off, life has thrown you a curveball, or when it seems like everything is spiraling around you, and trust me, it will happen again. I just want you to take a moment, shift your environment, move from one place to another, and ask that simple question again, "Who do I want to be right now?" Pause, take a few deep breaths, get clear on the kind of person you want to be in that moment, set intentional thoughts about this next thing that you're going into, So let's say maybe you're in your office and you're like, I don't like who I'm being right now. You go to the break room, you go outside your house, you go outside, take a walk. If you're in Arizona, please go outside, take a walk, because the weather is beautiful. And just decide, I have this meeting that's coming up in 30 minutes. I have a meeting that's coming up in an hour or so. How do I want to show up in that meeting? Who do I want to be? And just choose in that moment and become it. Because you see, the amazing thing is who you're being doesn't just impact you, it ripples out to everyone around you. So do you want to be the person, the catalyst that changes things for the better, or the catalyst or the person who throws gas on the fire that, you know, keeps everything spiraling, people in angst, people full of anxiety? Because when we choose calm, we spread calm to other people. When we choose joy, we spread joy to other people. And when we choose optimism, we can enroll others into that level of optimism. And I like to think of it as a bit of a superpower that each of us has access to and one that can shift our own experiences of how we walk through life and even help to lift others up. So remember, you're not just along for the ride. You can actually drive the car. Your car, because I know that this is the work that I do, and I'm an expert at helping you steer into different direction, into a different direction, one that you're actually in control of. So as I end this, this quick episode, if you're someone who wants to change the direction that your car is headed, and what I mean, if you're someone who wants to change your life, you want to change how you feel, you want to change how you show up every single day, this is the work that I do. Let me help you become the person you really want to be. Let me help you become the person who shows up intentionally in becoming the person, the leader that you really want to be in your life. All right, my peeps, take care and we'll talk next week.