Do You Feel Like You’re Losing Control?

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Get Motivated and Take Charge of Your Life

Do you feel like you’re losing control? Many of us seek approval from others, follow the crowd, or try to keep up with the Joneses.

When you constantly seek approval, you give more weight to another person’s opinion than to your own. When you’re hijacked by other people’s priorities, you don’t have time to tackle your own. And when you follow the crowd or change your viewpoints to fit in, you’re not being true to yourself or your values.

Here are nine ways that we lose control:

Defer to our parents. When we’re young, we listen to our parents. When we grow older, it’s hard for some people to pull away.

Respect authority. We’re taught to respect authority. It comes as no surprise that we sometimes let “authority” unduly influence us later in life.

Follow directions. Some people would rather be told what to do than take the time to think for themselves.

Ask permission. Some folks request permission to do things even though they have the freedom to choose for themselves.

Afraid to say “no.” Some people get sucked into commitments because they’re uncomfortable saying “no.”

Conform to groupthink. Some folks change their opinions to bend to peer pressure.

Look for acceptance. Some people go to great lengths to win acceptance from others.

Join the bandwagon. Some folks follow the crowd simply because everybody’s doing it.

Keep up with the Joneses. Some people do or buy things because they want to prove they’re more successful than their neighbor.

Are you losing control? This isn’t a call to disregard your need to fit in or to reject the support of others. But if you’re letting others control your agenda, you may be putting their preferences ahead of your own.