Joy Exercise 3: Control

My goal is to come up with 365 simple practical exercises anybody can do to increase the level of joy in their life.

We're told that a sense of control is correlated with joy in life. Now the reality is that we can't control all of our life, and in reality much of what happens is uncontrollable and we have to learn to roll with the punches, BUT, why not find some aspect you can get a sense of control over.
My life has been very stressful and challenging over the last few years with a feeling that have I had no control over many of the outcomes in my life, and so I took up exercise.
Exercise gave me one area of my life where I have a degree of control. It's up to me if I exercise, and the results that follow are pretty predictable.
Over the last 2 years I've gone from about 95kg and barely being able to run around the block to 80kg and running marathons.
What is one area of your life that you could take control of?
Write down a one month, three month, and 12 month goal.
Begin today by taking one simple step toward your goal.
Here's how I did it, it might inspire you.
Overall goal: Run a marathon before I turned 40 in memory of my brother who was a big runner and who died at 40.
Mini Goal 1: Put the running gear on.
Mini Goal 2: Get out the front door and around the block. (In the dark so nobody could see me.)
Mini Goal 3: Get around the block faster than a walk.
Mini Goal 4: Increase my distance by 5-10% per week until I got to 5km.
You get the idea.
I did my first marathon in Canberra in March, I'm ready for my second this weekend in Sydney. I can now swim over 2kms and recently did a 185k bike ride in 8.5 hours.
I've got a 500k bike ride planned for October over the Southern Alps in New Zealand and am booked into my first half-ironman in December.