Week 28: Let Go of What You Can’t Control

Welcome to Week 28 of the Authenticity@Work Leadership Tool-kit! My intention for this series is to share a quick tool each week to help you lead with more authenticity, adaptability and inspiration so we can together create workplaces where we bring the best of ourselves and inspire others. So grab a journal and an accountability partner to make these practices even more powerful for you!

In last week’s post we discussed letting go of the resistance to the commitment to be right. Did you recognize your inner saboteur that always wants to be right? Did you work with your Inner Director to find a place where you are in choice and not acting out of habitual patterns?

What does letting go of control have to do with authenticity? When we are committed to controlling what we actually have very little control over, it creates stress and undermines our ability to choose. It prevents us from trying new behaviors and being resilient when we don’t get the outcome we expected. Letting go of what we can’t control helps us focus on the practice rather than the outcome. It means that we can have a difficult conversation again even if the other person didn’t respond the first time in ways that we expected.

There are two things leaders try to control that we actually have limited control over: other people and outcomes of our effort.

When we let go of trying to control a situation, it can give us incredible freedom to create from what is happening now—to exercise our values rather than dwell in our fears and uncertainties.

This Week’s Tool:

A practice to let go of control is to simply ask ourselves when we find ourselves stressed about a situation, What am I committed to controlling here that I actually have no control over? Journal about your answer.

Get the latest resources for Authenticity@Work (this tab will get updated with all kinds of cool resources). Curious to know more about the book? Read the reviews about Wired for Authenticity here.

This article was written by Henna Inam, C-level executive coach, global speaker, and author of the book Wired for Disruption. She helps leaders grow their agility to be a force for good and thrive in times of change. They create organizations that drive breakthroughs in innovation, growth, and engagement. In roles including Head E-Innovation and Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer, Henna drove transformation throughout her 20-year corporate career as an executive with Fortune 500 companies. Join the thousands who follow her blog here. Connect on Linkedin.