by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
Making It: The Power of Happening Instead of Only Having Things Happen to You
To tell you something your probably already know: Life is unpredictable.
No matter how much we plan, prepare, or try to control things, there will always be circumstances forever beyond our reach – unexpected setbacks, other people’s choices, the sheer chaos of existence itself….there’s just so much UNCERTAINTY that comes from being a human being living a human life.
Within all of this uncertainty, though, lies something very powerful and very REAL: influence.
While we can’t control everything, we can always influence what happens in our lives in some way, shape, or form so that we can keep moving towards wholeness and our vision for REALNESS.
This quick article is about how understanding the distinction between what we can control, what we can influence, and what is out of our hands completely allows us to live as a cause in life rather than merely an effect in life.
This means driving our own bus rather than just being a passenger tossed around by life’s twists and turns and taking ourselves to the only place anybody wants to really be:
REAL LIFE.
Let’s dig deeper:
The Three Realms of Influence
To fully step into your power and start tapping into your realness, you need to understand these three realms of influence:
- No Control (What Happens To You / FATE)
This realm includes things like the past, other people’s actions, and the fundamental laws of reality (gravity, time, mortality, cause and effect, etc.). You can’t change these things because they’re inescapable and inevitable and trying to will only drain your energy because these things just contribute to the fabric of reality itself. - Some Control (What You Can Influence)
This is where most of life unfolds – you may not control every outcome, but you can influence your relationships, opportunities, mindset, reactions and even how others perceive you through your actions, attitude, and decisions. - Absolute Control (What You Do)
Things like your thoughts, actions, choices, and levels of discipline, focus, and consistency – this is where your real power lies. No one can take these from you unless you hand them over (usually because of underlying shame, guilt, and/or trauma).
Most people spend their lives reacting to the first category – which just causes them to get lost in fragmentation and EGO – and neglecting the third – which causes their lives to derail and end up becoming what Thoreau called “lives of quiet desperation”).
The key to growing REAL is shifting your focus and to stop reacting and start influencing whilst – at the same time – letting go of what you can’t control.
In other words:
Do your best and let go of the rest.
Are You Making Things Happen or Letting Things Happen to You?
Many people live in a passive and reactive state – they let life ‘happen’ to them rather than shaping it in alignment with their own will or creativity. They complain about their circumstances, blame external forces, and resign themselves to a fate they never truly chose.
(In other words, they identify as a VICTIM).
The ‘good’ news is that life is not defined by what happens to you – it’s defined by what you make happen (to paraphrase Carl Jung: “I’m not what happened to me; I’m what I choose to become“). And, even when we can’t control everything, we usually have far more influence than we initially believe because our lack of options is usually just a case of the Ego creating F.E.A.R (“False Evidence Appearing Real”).
Consider these examples – you can be a CAUSE or an EFFECT in any situation:
- You go through a breakup → You either spiral into bitterness (effect) or use it as fuel to grow and develop based on your vision (cause).
- You lose your job → You either feel victimised by the system (effect) or use it as an opportunity to pivot to something better that’s more aligned with your values anyway (cause).
- A challenge presents itself → You either crumble under pressure (effect) or use it as a stepping stone to greater strength and realness (cause).
Every situation, no matter how difficult, presents an opportunity to respond rather than just react – so, again, I ask you:
Are you a CAUSE or are you just an EFFECT?
The Uncontrollable Will ‘Happen’ – Act Anyway
At the end of the day, you’re a human being, and human beings are (partly) biological beings, which means things will happen to you whether you like it or not:
- Your emotions will rise and fall constantly (because emotions are e-motion, energy in motion).
- People will come and go.
- Circumstances will unfold beyond your control.
This is not a ‘problem’ per se – it’s just reality and it is what it is.
Problems arise, though, when people allow these inevitable and unavoidable occurrences to define them instead of recognising their ability to shape their response.
You can’t control what you experience but you can influence your experience of your experience.
For example:
- If you feel anxious, you can let that anxiety dictate your actions (effect) or you can take a deep breath, ground yourself, and move forward anyway (cause).
- If someone disrespects you, you can react emotionally and escalate the situation (effect) or you can respond with composure and choose your next step strategically (cause)
Every moment offers a choice: Are you being pushed around by life or are you pushing back?
If you want to start living your REAL life then it’s going to take a little effort before it all becomes effortless and that might mean giving a little PUSH every once in a while (instead of just being pushed on and then getting crushed under the weight of your own unreal ideas about yourself, the world, and reality).
Refuse to Be a Passive Player in Your Own Life
You were not designed to drift aimlessly through life:
To live real, you must be an active participant in shaping your reality and constantly evolving from fragmentation to wholeness.
This doesn’t mean life will be easy all the time – it won’t. But it does mean you have a framework for becoming who you need to be, rather than settling for what the world tells you to be.
Plus, if you don’t do the work to change your life and reclaim your life it will still won’t be easy – just in a different kind of way:
Do you want it to be hard because you’re doing the work to move towards your potential or do you want it to be hard because you never lived up to that potential?
Most people go wrong when they either assume they have no power or they believe in the false idea that “anything is possible” if they just think positively (without taking REAL ACTION). Neither is true:
You don’t control everything, but you do control how you show up in reality and that makes all the difference from one moment to the next.
Here’s what this means practically:
- You won’t just ‘find’ a great career – you create one by developing the skills and mindset necessary. Find = effect, Create = cause.
- You won’t just ‘stumble into’ the perfect relationship – you become the kind of person worthy of the relationship you desire. Stumble = effect, Become = Cause.
- You won’t just ‘wait’ for success – you take deliberate action every day to build it. Wait = effect, Take Action = cause.
Nothing will come to you by being an EFFECT alone. You make it happen by playing in a role in the active process of CAUSING it to happen.
There Is No “Out There” – Only What You Build
One of the biggest lies people believe is that the life they want is ‘out there’ waiting for them – as if it will magically appear if they just look hard enough or try to manifest and ‘attract’ without taking an action (that’s just spiritual bullsh*ttery).
Reality doesn’t work like that because reality is fuelled by CAUSE AND EFFECT:
The life you want exists in your head alone and it will stay there unless you take action to bring it into being by taking REAL ACTION (after going through the process of cultivating Awareness and integrating the Shadow – see this free guide for more details: Ego | Shadow | Trust: Build Flow & Become Unstuck. There’s also a quiz you can take here to find out what to focus on in your own life: Why Am I Stuck in Life? (QUIZ)).
The bottom line is that there’s nothing out there except what you create through your efforts to be a CAUSE and what you uncover in reality as it already exists.
If you want more:
- Stop hoping for it (effect). Start building it (cause).
- Stop waiting for permission (effect). Take real action (cause).
- Stop complaining (effect). Create solutions (cause).
- Etc. etc. etc.
The world does not ‘owe’ you anything; you do not ‘deserve’ everything you want simply for existing. But you have the power to shape something real from what’s available to you if you choose to.
What To Do To “Make It Happen” (Practical Steps)
If you want to start living as a cause, not an effect, you must put this into action.
Here’s how you can get started (book a call with me if you want to go deeper):
1. Shift Your Mindset from Effect to Cause
- Recognise where you have power and where you don’t within the three realms of influence listed above.
- Stop wasting energy on things you cannot control and realise that your time, energy, and attention are your most valuable assets.
- Focus on solutions, not problems – ask yourself what you CAN do instead of being held back by what you think you can’t.
2. Take Ownership of Your Self and Situation
- Accept full responsibility for your choices, actions, and outcomes.
- If you don’t like your situation, change what you can and let go of the rest (trust yourself and trust life)
- Don’t wait for someone to ‘fix’ things for you – nobody is coming to save you (and even if you’re waiting for God to save you, you still need to learn to manage your ego first).
3. Develop a Bias for Action
- Thinking is good. Overthinking is paralysis that leads to passivity and stagnation (which leads to depression).
- Once you commit, act. Stick with it unless something major requires you to shift.
- Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.
4. Build the Qualities That Support Your Vision
- Stop waiting for opportunities – become the kind of person who creates and attracts them by becoming the right person for the job.
- Want to lead? Develop strength, wisdom, and clarity.
- Want success? Cultivate discipline, consistency, and real skills aligned with your goals.
5. Control What You Can, Influence What You Can, LET GO of the Rest
- Absolute control: Your thoughts, actions, and effort.
- Some control: How you influence others, your reputation, and opportunities.
- No control: Other people’s opinions, the past, external chaos, and reality itself.
When you grasp this, you stop reacting to life as an effect and start living as a cause in it.
That’s how you grow REAL.
Final Thought: The World Begins and Ends with You
Life is happening all around us – the question is: Are you only letting it happen to you or are you making things happen when you can?
You are not just a passenger in this existence – you’re in the driving seat.
Stay real out there,
*Based on ‘Revolution’ number twenty four in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
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Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
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Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
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