Control the Controllables – Daily Challenge

Aim to score as many points as you can through the day by doing these things.

• Positive self-care habits – good eating, regular hydration, exercise and quality rest/sleep
• Give yourself specific times when you can check news/social media to get updates
• Respond not React – choose your response to the conditions you’re facing rather than simply reacting based on what other people tell you
• Keep asking yourself “Is my thinking helping me right now?” so you have the chance to practice managing your thoughts and attitudes regularly
• Get regular updates about what’s going on at work from the people you trust and who are responsible for supporting you and your colleagues
• Do something really practical and helpful that just makes life a little easier and more enjoyable for you and/or a colleague
• Take the opportunity to use newly available time to learn something new or prioritise activities that usually get moved down the to-do list

Aim to reduce the number of times these things happen, but be accepting of yourself when they do.

• Checking your social media or the news outside times that are your allowed times
• Let unhelpful thoughts hang around and build up so they become a distraction for you
• Keep asking for clarification about how things are going to work out when it’s clear no one can give you an immediate/definitive answer
• Judge yourself harshly for not doing something at exactly the same speed or level of skill you’d expect of yourself in normal conditions
• Allow your thoughts to get carried away with negative scenarios that might not happen
• Join a pity party where you spend loads of time talking with a lot of other people about stuff that makes you all feel worse!
• Worry about anything using it as an opportunity to take some action – finances are a good example