Life can sometimes feel pretty overwhelming. At times, I find myself reacting to big changes we’re all facing rather than choosing how to respond. So, for example, when I’ve faced big changes in my own life in the past, I’ve had real moments of panic worrying about all manner of things from the people in my family to ruminating about the very real impacts of climate change. When that happens, I’ve noticed that my news and social media scanning increases, I skip exercise and my sleep becomes pretty erratic. Not particularly helpful for me or anyone else.
When this starts to kick in, I’ve found that focusing my time and energy on the things I’ve got control over, rather than the things I don’t, helps me. And, it frees up time to think about how to help rather than ruminating over the impossible.
The Circles of Concern and Influence
My way of managing this has been adapted from a read of Stephen Covey’s book, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, where he introduces the Circles of Concern and Influence.
In a nutshell, your Circle of Concern contains all those things that concern you and matter to you. The challenge with this circle is that you can’t do something about everything in this circle and that’s where the Circle of Influence comes in. You might be concerned about climate change for example (in your Circle of Concern) but what you can do about it, falls into your Circle of Influence - the space where you can add those things you, personally, can do something about. By doing more, we can feel less hopeless and helpless.
This approach can also be used in organisations too - I’ve found it really useful in helping teams put a spotlight on where they can really focus to make a difference.
Here’s three questions you can ask yourself that will help you to focus on your Circle of Influence:
where are you currently spending most of your time - in the circle of concern or influence?
what aspects of your life or work can you have more influence or control over at the moment e.g. what you read or watch and how often, how you speak to yourself, how often do you check in with your team or your family?
How can you build in time every day - however busy things get - to refocus?
If you can spend a few minutes working through each of the circles, highlighting those things that you can have more influence and control over and consciously focusing on them, my own experience has shown that it can really make a difference.
If you’re facing big changes and you want help working through what you can influence to develop your own plan, just let me know.
This post is adapted from a piece written for the Twist ‘Change for the Better’ blog series. If you’d like to receive these updates, designed to help leaders and individuals deliver change for the better for people, organisations and the planet, sign up here