It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them. The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized. ~ Wayne Dyer
I like to be in control – of decisions, of events, of consequences, of my life. I’m a triathlete and a college professor. The addition of the word “control freak” to this list seems redundant, doesn’t it?
In the past few weeks, I’ve learned some tough lessons about control. In sum: I have very little control. Therefore, I need to stop worrying about controlling things, and just get busy doing them.
I didn’t have any control over whether or not my mother would survive cancer.
I didn’t have any control when 75 mile per hour winds ripped through my town on Friday night, toppled a 65(?)-foot tree in my backyard, and knocked out our electricity.
And, more to the focus of this blog, I don’t have any control over who shows up on race day, what the weather will be, or the difficulty of the course. Most importantly, I don’t have control over whether or not I will qualify for Kona.
This loss of control scares the crap out of me. I want to organize, orchestrate, and optimize. I want to take charge of the situation, whip the winds to my will.
But, I can’t control much about what happens around me.
Yet, I do have control over my actions, reactions and responses.
I can’t bring my mother back. I could choose to crawl into a ball, give up on life, and feel a victim because both of my parents died before I even got to the age of 40. But, to do that would be to lose control.
I can control the decisions I make based on what I learned from my mother, and her experience in fighting cancer. I can help others in their battle against this disease. So, I’m raising money for Gilda’s Club. No, I can’t control whether or not people will donate. But, I’d rather not spend my efforts worrying about that. I need to get busy helping others in their fight against this disease.
I can’t control mother nature. The ferocity of the storms that hit our region really demonstrate just how little control we have over our environment. Instead of busying ourselves with worry and anxiety, we busied ourselves by enjoying what is pleasant about a life that is not bound to electronics. We helped those we could. And, when it just got too hot to move, we sat outside trying to capture whatever faint breeze there might be and watched the moonrise in the sky. We counted our blessings that the storm wasn’t any worse for us than it was.
I can’t control whether I will qualify for Kona. Within the last week, it became clear to me that I will have to win – yes, W.I.N. – my age group if I want to earn my slot to Kona. I realized that there are only 91 women in my age group (35-39) at Mont Tremblant. By way of comparison, the male 35-39 AG has 331, and the male 40-44 AG has 464. At IM Cozumel, where John qualified, the male 35-39 was the largest AG with over 400 competitors, and they got 7 slots.
Suffice to say, an age group with only 91 people will be lucky to get – at best – 2 slots. I sent an email to my coach Vince last week, asking him about slot allocations.
Vince confirmed my realization in his response, “My guess is you’ll get one or two slots for each race at either event. You need to look at the win. I know that seems huge but you need to focus on what is in your control. Training is in your control. Keep doing that.”
Seems huge? Nay, sir – it IS huge. We are talking about a girl who was 40-something in her age group last year at IMLP. I need to jump over 40 places to qualify? How can I can I realistically expect to do that?
I could let worry stop me from trying. I could back off, giving myself the excuse that it’s just too hard, it’s just too much to expect. But, I can’t do that because I’m busy training.
