I attended a networking meeting this week and the speaker – talking about resilience and remote working used this quote from Maya Angelou.

It resonated for me with the NLP idea of ‘being at cause’.  If you’re not familiar with that, it comes from the relationship of cause and effect.  When someone has a problem, they are often experiencing the ‘effect’ end of the equation…

“someone has let me down”

“the system is stopping me doing that”

“the weather’s getting in the way”

“my boss isn’t supporting me” 

and so on.

These are all uncomfortable experiences and they’re made worse by the sense that someone or something else holds the control in the situation.

The mental discipline of ‘being at cause’ is to focus on the choices that ARE available instead of the ones that are blocked.

“one person has let me down so I’m looking for someone else”

“the system is stopping me doing that, I wonder if there’s another way”

“the weather’s getting in the way today, so maybe we’ll do it tomorrow”

“my boss isn’t supporting me, I haven’t made the case compelling enough yet”

The benefit of this way of thinking is that it puts you back in control.  You have choices.  You can make decisions.  You are in charge of your own experience.

Who doesn’t want that?