Welcome to the Very Well Mind podcast. We've interviewed over 100 authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and others to help you learn strategies to care for your mental health.

This episode is hosted by psychotherapist and bestselling author Amy Morin. Now let's get into the episode.

Okay. Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength strategy that will help fix the thoughts, feelings, and actions that can hold you back in line.

Today, I'm talking about how to stop focusing on things that you can't control.

There's a whole chapter in my book, 13 things mentally strong people don't do about this subject.

Worrying about things that you can't control drains you of mental strength. Not to mention it waste time and waste a lot of precious brain power. It's tough not to do it, though. We all do it

sometimes. We worry about what someone else is going to do rather than focus on managing our

response, or we worry about what's going to happen next rather than think about how we'll

handle the situation. I'm certainly guilty of it, and it's also a common issue I address in therapy. Sometimes people

want to spend their therapy appointments talking about how their mother-in-law should change

their behavior or how their partner needs to do things differently. Usually, the root of the problem

is the same, though. People are trying to manage their anxiety. They worry that they can't control their inner turmoil,

so they focus all their efforts on trying to control the situation or other people.

I once worked at this woman who wanted to spend her therapy appointments telling me about how

her adult daughter was wasting her money. Her daughter was a single mom living on a limited

income, yet she always

bought expensive clothes and high-end purses. She drove a really nice car. She went to the spa all the

time. My client would often lecture her daughter about her spending habits, and she spent a lot

of energy worrying about all the silly things her daughter bought. She wanted to know what she could do to

make her daughter straighten up. She'd say things like, she has to make a budget, or she can't keep

spending like this. Her treatment involved learning how to let go of her need to control her daughter's

habits. Although her daughter was in financial trouble, it wasn't my client's fault, and it wasn't

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