High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 644: How to Dominate the Controllables

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

As humans, our default is to focus on the uncontrollables. It is much easier to blame, complain, and make excuses than to take a close look in the mirror and examine ourselves and our actions. In this episode, Dr. Kamphoff shares how to focus on what you can control and the importance of dominating the controllables. Power Phrase This Week: “I dominate the controllables.” Quote of the Week: John Maxwell said, “Life is 10% of what happens to me, and 90% of how I react to it.”

Hi, friends. My name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week, I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. We're checking in with Cinder Kampoff today, and we often talk kind of about this topic, but I want to dig into it a little bit more. We're talking about dominating the controllables. Cinder, we often talk about control the controllables. We want to dominate the controllables. And you start us off with a quote today. I love this quote by John Maxwell, a leadership writer, and he said, life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it, which isn't that so true?

It is very true. So how do we want to start off today? Well, the topic of what we're talking about is dominating the controllables. It's really an essential part of just us reaching our best and thriving and reaching high performance. And the way to think about this is our life can be divided into two areas, things you can control and things you cannot control. The things that we can control are things like the weather, right? Or change your competitors, the economy, different regulations, technology, pandemics, right? Even your clients or customers, not, you know, and plus we're talking about other people's thoughts and actions and perceptions. Those are all things that we can't

control. And I listed change first, Lisa, because I think that's actually an uncontrollable that I see that most people can struggle with. Change. Okay. Well, why is it important for us to focus on what we can control? When we focus on what we have no control over, we tend to experience frustration, anxiety, fear, blame. And when we stay focused on the uncontrollables, I think it generally just negatively impacts our happiness. We're not able to be as creative or innovative, and we stop moving forward with our own vision. But when we focus on what we can control, we're more likely to lead intentionally. You know, we're able to stay in higher levels of energy and being just excited and passionate about our work. And we're able to overcome and tackle

challenges kind of head on. And what I find Lisa is every day I focus on something I can't control. You know, I think it's kind of, it's like our default. So the idea is first just to pay attention to what you can control and catch yourself when you're focusing on what you can't. All right. So what's the first thing we can control? I know you have an acronym for this. We're going to use the acronym CAPE. So C-A-P-E and C just stands for control. So that just focuses on what you can control. And the A is the first thing we can control. And that's our attitude, our actions, and our attention. So everything that starts with A, and for example, our attitude, we can control that,

right? Our attention is most important. And we have to kind of guard our attention and what we pay attention to. You know, at any given moment, we can shine our attention to what helps us. And our attention determines actually how we feel. So that's A is attitude, actions and attention. P stands for passion, preparation, purpose. And our preparation, we want to stay focused on what we can control. And that's our preparation. Our passion is our energy that comes from focusing on really what lights our fire, what keeps us going. And our purpose is what makes us unique. So that's really important to stay focused on. And E stands for effort and emotions and energy.

And all of those things are controlled by our attention. And what we know is, you know, high performers don't just go through the motion. They really stay fully focused and engaged on pursuing their best every day. Our emotions are really what, you know, fuels us and our energy is contagious. So those are things we want to stay focused on. And do you have a final point for us today? For sure, Lisa. You know, as humans, our default is to focus on the uncontrollables. And it's much easier to blame and complain and make excuses instead of taking a look at ourselves and examine what we're, you know, how we can focus on what we can't control. So I would say the final point is just to catch yourself in a compassionate, nonjudgmental way

when you're focusing on what you can't control. And the sooner you notice, the sooner you can, of course, correct and try not to let yourself focus on the uncontrollables, you know, more than a couple seconds. We want to redirect ourselves to what we can control just by asking ourselves, what can I control right now? And do you have a power phrase for us this week? I do. This is a good one. It's easy and simple. I dominate the controllables. Well, that is easy and simple. Cinder, where can we follow along with your work? You can head over to Dr. Cendra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. And I focus on this in both of my books, Beyond Grit and Beyond Grit for Business, which you can find over there. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset.

I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe, and you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes. And to join my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.