Who is in the driver's seat of your life?

"I Am in Control" Day originated on March 30^th, 1981 when Ronald Reagan was wounded in an assassination attempt and then Secretary of State Alexander Haig was taken a little out of context when he said "I am in control here".  People only focused on those words out of all the others he had said about trying to handle the situation at hand.  From this, the holiday has evolved to a more personal level as a day to get things in your life in order and under control.  I think it is a very important thing to feel like you are in control of your own life so I’m going to talk about a few simple things you can do to feel in control on a day to day basis.

The first step to feeling in control is knowing what you want to accomplish out of your day.  It may be as simple as wanting to get some laundry done or as difficult as reading a 700 page book for English, finishing your math and physics homework, and studying for Spanish by 5pm.  Either way, you need to clearly define some goals so you can work on accomplishing them and therefore controlling your day.  I once heard the quote, “Either you run the day or the day runs you” and that is very true.  If you don’t take control of the time you have in a day, then the day will go by quicker than you can say “I am in control”.

After you have established your goals, set small deadlines to make sure your goals don’t become insurmountable.  You are less likely to feel in control if you haven’t done any of your reading rather than if you have done half of it.  Take small steps towards getting some of everything done, that way you won’t be left with a huge amount of any one thing at the end of the day. 

The last step is obviously to finish everything that you have started.  This may take longer than expected but if that happens, but keep in mind that life needs constant revisions, so it’s ok if deadlines need to be changed as long as you meet the ultimate deadline.  If you feel like you can’t finish an assignment in time make sure you talk to your teacher and let them know why you are not able to complete the assignment and they should be willing to work with you as long as it is a sensible reason.  A big part of feeling in control is taking matters into your own hands and working with people along the way to make the situation turn out the best way possible. 

I hope this helps a little.  Good luck getting in control!