Trust the Path

“I would say I was always very ambitious and goal-oriented, but rather than being just a go-getter hustler, now I surrender a lot more and I trust my path a lot more.” ~ Jenna Dewan
 
I was going through old notebooks and found a piece of advice from a friend that got me through a difficult time at work. During that time in my life, I didn’t have a mindfulness practice, yet he taught me an important mindfulness practice to surrender and let go because I didn’t have control. My friend got me to read a great book Now, Discover Your Strengths by Buckingham and Clifton and I learned that two of my deep strengths are responsibility and achiever.
 
Responsibility and achiever are good strengths to have in the work place.  I took full responsibility for each task I was given and the achiever in me wanted to do the best job possible.  But, my friend pointed out that for my psychological safety I needed to look at the situation that was causing me to suffer and realize that many things were WAY outside of my control.  He got me to comprehend that I couldn’t own the pieces that I didn’t have control over and it was important to separate myself from the things I didn’t have control over.  In work situations there can be may be issues with  politics, bosses, their bosses, co-workers, technology, software, and other things to numerable to list. I had to let go of beating myself up when all of my hard work wasn’t making a difference.  He told me to TRUST that everything would work out.  I still worked very hard and did the best I could, but I let go of my expected outcome - it made a huge difference in my attitude and sanity.

Now seven years later, I realize how valuable the advice was - it was just the beginning of learning to trust in a power greater than myself and to learn to surrender and go with the flow when you aren’t in control.  And we are never in control.  I am so grateful to have received the advice so that I survived and thrived during a difficult time. I am also grateful to now have a mindfulness practice that focuses on those key concepts of acceptance,  surrender and trusting the path.
 
What are your greatest strengths?
 
How do you take care of your psychological safety when things in your life are outside of your control?