This past weekend my family took a long weekend trip to Madison, WI. One of our favorite parts of the trip was a beautiful day on the lake enjoying the beach and kayaking. The lake was ours to explore, my wife and daughter in one kayak and my son and I teamed up in the other. Part way into our kayaking experience, as my son and I are sitting out in the middle of the lake enjoying the beautiful day, he started to complain that the natural movement of the water was taking us away from the next spot we were going to explore.

At this point I had a somewhat Zen vibe just trying to take in the beauty of the environment but here was my son focused on the next spot. He was not happy about moving further away from our next point of destination. Bye bye Zen.

While I did want additional time of soaking in the moment I couldn’t argue with his viewpoint. As the waves continued to knock us off course, my son acknowledged we had control in this situation. To my son the situation was as simple as we are getting pushed away from our destination and we need to fight back and course correct.

This idea sounds very familiar to our own journey. It’s easy for the “waves” of life to push us further from where we want to go. Minor waves such as hitting a lull at work or taking a break from consistently eating healthy or working out can slightly move us off course. Or the big waves could hit and quickly take us off path from our journey such as losing a job or going through a big loss.

These waves in life are inevitable and hit in a variety of ways at all different times. While we may be able to prepare for some, we can’t prepare for them all. Like how my son was focused on course correcting, we need to identify what we can control getting us back on the path we know we need to be on.

During some of these waves we will quickly go to a mental state of frustration or a ‘poor me’ attitude from the circumstances life gives us. The challenge, and often the difference in outcome, is whether we can move away from this frustration and instead, channel energy to what we can control. The easy path is to continue with frustration and negativity towards the wave we’re dealing with. The uncontrollable will consume us if we let it. Focus on what can be controlled in the situation.

Waves will continuously knock us off course in our personal growth journey. How far we let those waves get us off course is on us. The fight to withstand those waves and pull back on course is the control we are looking for. Channel your time and energy to this fight and understand while getting back on course isn’t always an easy task, it’s the move to keep striving towards your better tomorrow.

Take your step: identify a “wave” you can feel taking you off track right now. Take time to think about 2-3 things you can control to help fight against this wave and get back on track. Let go of the fact life has thrown you this challenge and focus the time and energy on what you can control to fight this wave.