Controlling the controllables

 “Controlling the controllables”

 This is probably quite a familiar phrase to most readers.  But how do you really implement it and what does it really mean? The “flip-side” of controlling the controllables is not wasting any time or mental energy on things you can’t do anything about.  Then there is the middle ground – things you can do something about but they are still there and could still cause issues. Get this right and you weigh the scales in your favour for any challenge or race before you even start.

Half way through the first day of the Saunders MM in 2018 - we totally failed on foot care and both our feet were wrecked.  We definitely didn't control that controllable!

 

I was out in the fells with my good friend, accomplished fell runner and ex-Gurkha, Patrick Wooddisse, he was telling me about the approach the Gurkhas adopted in life and as soldiers: a combination of fatalism (‘what happens happens’) and an iron refusal to give up (‘however hard the road gets you must keep walking’). Whilst these mantras seem incompatible when translated into English as they have been, he went on to describe how they were expressed in a prayer (which was written by someone far wiser than either of us):  

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; 
and wisdom to know the difference.

I’m not a religious person but this prayer concisely expressed one of the biggest ongoing conundrums of life in general - when should you take action and when should you not.  It clearly also had massive application for adventure sports/ultra running.  However, not being religious, I realised I’d have to find some other way of gaining the wisdom which was the key to unlocking the conundrum!

Scafell from Scafell Pike - the day when we were discussing these things in the fells. 

Back home the following week I kept thinking about these words and how they can almost dictate all aspects of someone’s life.

Controlling the controllables was also a large part of Ross Edgley’s approach to swimming around the entire coast of Great Britain, which has to be one of the most incredible endurance achievements of our generation.  The book he wrote “The Art of Reslience” goes into great depth on the mental and physical approach he adopted to achieve this quite incredible feat. I can’t recommend the book enough – I think any runner could learn a huge amount from his approach.  When talking about how he controlled the controllables, Ross split influencing factors into internal and external ones  - he accepted that he was at the mercy of external events (for example waves, storms, weather, what was happening away from his swim) but knew that he could control his own actions and most importantly his own mind – “our inner domain (the controllables) cannot be conquered without our consent”.  This is clearly a simplification as I don’t think anyone suffering with mental health issues would say that they consented to them but day to day on his swim he was able to control his own feelings and own strategy.  The book makes it clear that this was a big part of his success.

 

All about how he trained and completed his 'Great British Swim'

Since hearing the prayer from Patrick and thinking about this all a bit more, a key thing for me was to recognise that you can’t define somethings as always controllable and somethings as always uncontrollable.  Take navigation or food, for example, generally I like to think of these as things I can control through strategies and plans . However, on almost every long distance run I’ve ever done I think I’ve made some sort of mistake in either one or both of these things.  Sometimes I’ve let these mistakes get to me and never really got back to my usual self – they’re “controllables” after all and I failed to control them!  However, after they have happened these mistakes had shifted from being controllable to uncontrollable – what was controllable was my mindset and my decisions going forward on nutrition and navigation.  When I was able to adopt this approach it was suddenly easier to move on and get back to focusing on dealing with any problems and progressing in the run. 

Start of the Spine Challenger in 2017 - in some challenges working out what might happen  and what you need to try to control is half the battle!

It’s also possible to take a very similar approach to your training building up to an event.  Training is something that, generally, is a controllable. Sometimes it won’t be (other commitments/injuries etc) but most of the time it is.  However, what you can’t control and can’t change is where you are right now.  That’s fixed – it’s only really future training that is a controllable, past training is uncontrollable. Before a race the temptation is always to focus on what you haven’t done in preparation – at that point in time, focusing on these things is only going to have a negative effect on your race, it will drain your confidence and it’s an uncontrollable.  You can’t do anything about it now!  Instead focus on what you can do from where you are now to have the best race you can.

 

John Kelly summed up his approach really clearly in his write-up of the Grand Round 2.0:  “I had controlled the variables I could, attempted to mitigate the ones I couldn’t, and not wasted energy on the ones I couldn’t do anything about”.

 As John’s post indicates most of the thinking about controllables and uncontrollables can be done in advance and lots of things can be mitigated.  There is also an overlap between controllables and uncontrollables – take “weather”.  This is clearly an external factor which you can’t control.  However, you can control your response to the weather and changes to it.  This is where your plans and strategies come in (see earlier blog post!).

 

None of this is easy – especially controlling emotions – but taking steps to control your controllables should massively increase your chances of success whatever it is you’re trying to achieve.