Читать книгу Comfortable Chaos - Carolyn Harvey & Beth Herrild - Страница 31

The circle on the left represents everything you want or believe you need to control in order to have a happy and fulfilling life. The possibilities are numerous. Wouldn’t it be great to control everything from your schedule to your manager to your children’s behavior? The circle on the right represents what you actually can control. This is the reality circle. It contains only the things you actually have the ability to control.

The shaded section, where the circles overlap, is ideally where you should be spending your time. These are the things you both want to control and have the ability to control. We call this the “want and can” area or WaC for short. Notice that this is a much smaller area than either of the circles and that’s why it can be challenging to stay in the shaded area. It’s very easy to get out of WaC! To further illustrate this concept, we will use two examples and then invite you to analyze your own tendencies about control.

First, let’s take a look at someone who is operating primarily in the left-hand circle (what you want to control). Mike is a project manager at a software company and also has a wife and three children. He has a high need for control both at work and home. At work he is often frustrated when a change in the software requirements causes him to get off schedule and have to completely redesign the project. He also has a new manager who is eager to merge his department with another one — a plan that Mike disagrees with. Mike has spent lots of time diplomatically countering his boss’s proposals. At home, Mike prefers a neat and tidy house, while his wife is much more comfortable with clutter and mess. When he is home he often spends most of his evening picking up the toys and feeling resentful about it.

Mike’s situation is depicted in Figure 2.