How to stay focused on what matters
I was sitting in Heathrow airport last week feeling overwhelmed. I felt like I had a million thoughts about a million things rattling around in my head. I had workshops to write and run, proposals to send, content to write and if that wasn’t enough our daughter has just left home (willingly 😂) and we’re about to move house (again!)
I’d love to tell you that this is rare, however, like every other human it seems to happen more regularly than I’d like. The feeling of being overwhelmed can lead to anxiety, procrastination, stress, sleep deprivation, confrontation, poor decision-making and so on.
And that’s before you factor in the thoughts where you tell yourself what other people might be thinking and feeling. You know, the one where you talk to yourself ‘If they do this, then I’ll do that’, ‘If they say this, then I’ll say that’, ‘I’m sure X feels like this about me’!
Every time I feel like this I do the same thing. I turn to Stephen Covey’s Circle of Concern, Influence and Control from his best-selling book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’. I’ll be honest I couldn’t tell you much about the rest of the book other than I enjoyed it, however, this one model stuck with me about 15 years ago (the book was published in 1989) when I first read it and I’ve used it ever since.
It looks like this:
Circle of Concern – Everything that worries us: global events, other people's opinions, the economy, things beyond our reach.
Circle of Influence – Things you can affect: relationships, persuading others, our reputation, team dynamics.
Circle of Control – What we directly command: our reactions, effort, skills, choices, conversations, attitude.
When we feel overwhelmed, we waste energy fixating on the Circle of Concern; worrying about things we cannot change. This creates anxiety and helplessness.
The antidote is to redirect that energy inward. Focus on the Circle of Control first. What can we do right now? Then expand to the Circle of Influence. Who can we speak to? What can we gradually shape?
When we have this focus, the Circle of Concern becomes surplus to requirements. In short, you see it for what it is. Irrational and unhelpful. We can then conserve emotional energy and regain agency.
This shift is psychologically powerful. It transforms us from victim to agent. Rather than feeling paralysed and overwhelmed by everything that's wrong, we take purposeful action on what you can actually affect (which definitely doesn’t include what other people think!)
Over time, our Circle of Influence naturally expands, but only when we stop needlessly wasting energy on things beyond our reach.
Applying this to teams it helps people to distinguish between systemic issues (concern), stakeholder relationships (influence), and their own contribution (control).
As I said, it's a practical tool for regaining agency, but more than that it’s a simple way to reduce stress and anxiety. It took me 15 minutes in Heathrow to not only physically draw the model and populate it, but then make a list of the things that I could control and influence. At that point I felt a sense of calm. That everything was in order and ready to be actioned and it was all thanks to this model.
It works for me when I feel overwhelmed, and it might just work for you.
