Focus More On Your Circle of Influence
The world around us is made up of only two factors: The things we can control and the things we can’t. Everything falls into these two categories. From the people and objects in our environment to the problems we face each day.
Stephen Covey referred to these in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His explanation used two circles, the circle of concern and the circle of influence. Covey explains this concept by describing two circles. One is called your circle of concern. Inside your circle of concern is everything you could possibly be worried about, from the pandemic to whether to wear a jacket or not
The other is your circle of influence. These are the things you can directly influence, like whether or not you wear a jacket today
The circle of concern covers everything in our life that affects us. For example, you can’t control the job market, but you can develop skills and expand your network.
Stay inside your circle of influence. The more you do, the bigger your circle of influence grows.
It’s important to understand the difference between what we control and what we influence. To control means that we have complete authority over. For example, we can control whether or not we eat healthy.
But I can’t control whether or not my friend eats healthy. I might be able to convince them not to eat certain foods. Or they might be inspired when they see me resisting unhealthy foods. We can influence others, but we can’t control them.
That’s the difference. There is no ambiguity in control. If we can control, we can get exactly what we want. But influencing means we can impact it, but can’t guarantee the results we want.
It seems pretty clear that most of our time and energy should be spent on things we can control.
But, we should be conscious of and spend a moderate amount of time in the circle of influence as well. We have to interact with other people and communities on a daily basis – it’s important to pay quality attention to it.
However, we should aim for the circle of concern to have no power over us. Easier said than done of course.
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