Focus on What You Can Control, Not What You Can’t

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On January 31, 1988, my favorite football team got off to a miserable start in Super Bowl XXII. By the second quarter they were down 10-0. I figured I needed to change their luck, so I put a kitchen chair at the back of my in-laws’ great room and stood on it. It worked. My team scored 35 points in the second quarter and went on to win easily.

Did my antics make a difference? Absolutely! They made a difference for me. As for the outcome of the game it had no influence.

Today, many people are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the 2020 presidential election between President Donald Trump and former Vice-President Joe Biden. Even when the vote counting is completed, it’s possible that legal battles will drag things on. As we’ve learned with the pandemic, it’s this kind of uncertainty that can increase our own anxiety.

So what do we do?

Self-differentiation involves taking responsibility for self. It’s focusing on the things that we can control, not the things we can’t. This helps us to regulate our anxiety so that we can be a non-anxious leader.

What we don’t want to do is let our anxiety make things worse for ourselves, those we love and those we lead.

Here are four suggestions to manage yourself through the election uncertainty.

The first thing you can do is to pray and meditate.

These are proven ways to reduce your anxiety, as well as to get some much-needed perspective on the situation at hand. Spiritual practices will help you to understand that mostly what you can control is your own response.

The second thing you could do is to find a harmless placebo.

This is what I did in Super Bowl XXII. While it had no effect on the game, it did help my own anxiety. Peacefully gathering with other people to pray for the outcome, or even just to hear results, will not likely change the outcome but it will make us feel better. Of course, this is not protesting in ways that incite violence or intimidate others. That’s being an anxious leader not a non-anxious one.

Two examples are helpful. On Thursday evening I was watching a news report from the Maricopa County, Arizona vote counting location. A crowd of Trump supporters had gathered outside the fence that had been erected around the building. I was expecting to see anger and vitriol, but according to the reporter the crowd was expressing their confusion about the counting process and was praying for the outcome. On Friday I saw footage of a crowd of Biden supporters in Philadelphia that broke out into a dance party in the street.

Neither of these events will likely change the outcome. The votes are in. They’ll be counted. The outcome will be adjudicated. But I believe that the people gathered in these moments we’re doing something helpful for themselves without harming others. That’s what a placebo can do.

A third thing that is close to this is giving money to support your candidate’s efforts.

This is not exactly a placebo because it can make a difference. But the more important difference is it will help you feel like you’ve done something to influence the outcome. If the legal battles continue, supporting your candidate will help fund their efforts.

Finally focus on treating other people with grace.

Grace is unconditional love and acceptance. There’s a good chance that there are people you work with, lead, are friends with or are related to that are supporting the other candidate. Judging them won’t help. Loving them will. It not only will help you regulate your anxiety, but it will help others do the same.

A peaceful transfer of power or a peaceful transition from one presidential term to the next is an essential part of our democracy. Demonizing our opponents won’t help. As I wrote in my last blog post, let’s all take a deep breath.

The best thing we can do right now is to work and pray for what we believe in, while giving those who disagree with us the respect to do the same. That’s what it means to be a non-anxious presence. That is my hope and prayer for you.

The Rev. Jack Shitama serves as executive director of Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries in Maryland.  This post is republished with permission from his blog The Non-Anxious Leader.