Free Mind Gym by Sebastian Bailey

locus of control lies. If you have an external locus of control—you feel reactive and out of control—how is this affecting your life? In other words, what are you not doing because you think you can’t make a difference to the outcome?
Advanced: In and Out of Your Control
    1. Take a blank sheet of paper. At the top, write down an issue that is on your mind and you want to address.
    2. Draw a vertical line down the middle of the page. In the left column, write down all the aspects of this issue that are bothering you and you cannot control. In the right column, write down all the things you could do that might have an impact.
    3. Circle of few of the things you can do to have an impact and put a date next to each for when you will take action on it.
    4. Take action!
    Often when people complete this exercise, they are surprised by how much they can put in the right column. A long list will give you the confidence to take control of the situation and make useful things happen.

CHAPTER 4
Start a New Chapter
    Y ou’re sitting in your rocking chair on the terrace of your beach home, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and watching the sun set with a glass of wine by your side. With your 100th birthday only a few weeks away, you’re reflecting on your life and recalling how the major decisions you made at different stages affected the course it followed. You remember the day you chose to move to California, the struggle to get a job as a writer, the naysayers who told you it was a waste of your time, your chance meeting with the woman who quickly became the love of your life. As you reflect, you realize that doing the things others told you were impossible became the most prized moments of your life.
    A few weeks later, as your entire family gathers for your 100th birthday, one of your daughters asks you to give advice to all your grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And you decide to share the reflections.
    “My advice to all of you is to understand that there is very little in life you can’t do,” you say to your family. “The choice we all have is between will and won’t , instead of can and can’t . Sure, people tend to say they can’t do something or you can’t do something. But that just disguises the fact that there is still a choice that can be made—in almost all situations. There is always a choice. What people actually mean is they won’t do something or they don’t want you to do something. You always have the option.”
“Can’t” Is a Four-Letter Word
    This difference in attitude between “can’t” and “won’t” is a subtle but vital one, because it indicates whether you feel responsible for your actions and your future. In fact, the existentialist philosophers, led by Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger, were the first significant body of thinkers to claim that humankind is totally free and totally responsible for its actions. This may sound less radical now than it did in the middle of the twentieth century. But it is much more radical than many of us allow when we consider how to improve our lives.
    Today, our lives are full of rules, guidelines, and principles that we have invented, or have been invented for us, to help us make choices but also to provide us with excuses for poor decisions. And although they may masquerade as immutable laws, they are more like local bylaws, which are often outdated, irrelevant, and just plain wrong.
    Here are a few you may have come across or live your life by:
        •   Job security is greater at larger, well-known companies.
        •   If you want a successful career, you must have a college degree.
        •   You are more likely to get divorced if there is a large age gap between you and your partner.
        •   People who finish at the top of their class get the best jobs.
    Much of our upbringing is filled with threats about the horrible things that will happen if we don’t stick to the rules. Santa Claus won’t visit us if