The Illusion of Control
My life coach helped me notice something about myself recently. There are days when I have a great week of training, everything clicks in the operating room, and I feel like I am on top of the world. And then there are days when I am injured, or something does not go as planned, and it feels like everything is crumbling.
It is the same person, but with completely different emotional states.
It made me realize how often I tie how I feel to things that are not fully in my control.
Attachment to Outcome
I heard something recently that stuck with me. The idea of “not caring what happens.” Not in a careless way, but in a grounded way. Planning, preparing, doing the work… and then choosing not to be emotionally dependent on the outcome.
We are so outcome focused. When something does not go exactly as planned, we spiral. This happens in training, in surgery, in life.
But what if we loosened that attachment? What if we allowed the outcome to be what it is, and chose to find success in it anyway?
If a surgery does not go exactly as planned, but the patient returns to sport without pain, that is success.
If I get injured and it forces me to rest and recover, that is success.
If something in my career does not go the way I wanted, but it creates space for something else in my life, that is success.
This shift has brought me a lot of peace lately.
Focusing On What We Can Control
Picture this… An athlete comes into my office with an ACL tear. We decide surgery is the best option, and I explain they will be out for about a year.
They are overwhelmed. Their mind immediately goes to everything they cannot do.
Two weeks after surgery, they come back. The knee is swollen, they’re on crutches, and physical therapy has started. They look at me and list all the things they have lost. Some are in tears. Some cannot make eye contact.
I have been on both sides of that table. And it sucks.
I tell them the same thing every time. “You will get back physically. You are an athlete. But your mind will be your biggest challenge.”
We change the language from what they cannot do, to what they can do. This mindset shift is paramount.
Control the Controllable
Here is my list of controllables:
My preparation.My effort.My attitude.My response.
We do not control outcomes, timing, and we especially do not control other people.
The athletes who do best, the patients who recover best, and honestly the people who are the happiest are the ones who figure this out.
We stop wasting energy on things outside of our control and double down on the things that are within it.
Final Thoughts
If you have not listened to “Good” by Akira The Don and Jocko… it is a must listen, especially when things don’t go your way.
Detaching myself from outcomes is still a work in progress. It is slowly getting there. And I will keep working on it.
Letting go of outcomes is not easy, especially when you care deeply about what you do. But I am starting to understand that I can care deeply about my work, my training, and my performance… without needing everything to go a certain way to feel okay.
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Dr. Megan Lisset Jimenez
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