FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

Tom met with his older mentor Dwyer for his weekly chat. “You seem troubled,” observed Dwyer.

“You know that project that I've been working on?  It just didn't work and I couldn't get the result that I was after. In fact I worked so hard, I deserved a better outcome,” responded Tom with frustration. 

The mentor took Tom outside and said, “See this dead tomato plant. I did everything right when I planted it.  I watered it,fertilized it and made sure that there were no weeds around it, but it still died. No matter how much you want to control the final outcome, you can’t.  

All that you can do is control the controllable, take responsibility for doing all that you can and leave the outcome up to God.”

“So what do I do?  If I can’t be guaranteed success, should I just give up?” saying this Tom was about to leave. Giving him a basket full of large, juicy, bright red tomatoes, Dwyer said, “Of course, not every tomato plant died.  If you consistently do the right thing, you will dramatically increase your chances of delivering phenomenal outcomes.  But if you give up due to one or two negative results, you’ll never reap a reward.”