When a comedian finds herself performing in front of 50 instead of 500 or when an author wrote a book but doesn’t see it confirmed by critics, what’s their reaction?

Some will complain and find themselves not supported enough or a failure. And therefore, they might become careless of their performance or decide to stop writing.

Others will see that they have been able to write a book that they like or that they have chosen to perform in front of people independently of how large an audience they have. They’ll experiment with their performance to learn how to engage a smaller crowd, or they’ll set out to write the next book.

They might also acknowledge that their hopes have not been fulfilled. But they’ll distinguish between what they hoped for and what they can control.

Hope will push us to try something we’ve not done before or to stick to our objective to show up.

What we control, that is our self-motivated discipline, will enable the way we show up to be to the best of our ability on that day.