Episode 307 Focus on What You Control (And Stop Wasting Your Energy)

In this week’s episode, Anna urges that you focus on what you can control as she dives into the concept of being proactive rather than reactive, especially in these challenging times marked by economic turmoil, pandemics, and global uncertainties. Drawing insights from Stephen Covey’s classic framework of the circles of concern, influence, and control, she explores how refocusing on what we can control empowers us and reduces stress. Anna offers practical advice on how to apply this mindset shift in your career, business, and personal life by emphasising proactive actions and intentional living. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion that aims to help you reassess your approach to the many challenges we face today. Don’t forget to rate, review, and share your thoughts on the episode!

00:00 Dread returning to work after the summer.

04:21 Anticipating pumpkin pie, embracing the new season.

07:34 Transitioning back to work with calm approach.

09:49 Upcoming work-related episode, Halloween season approaching. Good luck!

*Resources mentioned during the episode*
1:1 Coaching & Mentoring – If you’re looking for one-to-one support to help you achieve your specific life and business goals, Anna has a limited number of spots for individual coaching and mentoring. www.onestepoutside.com/coaching

Focus on what you can control

What if you try to be a little less reactive in responding to the things that are getting thrown at you and a bit more proactive and intentional in focusing on the things that you can control? I did a keynote recently where we looked at the changes that have been happening, the disruption that the retail industry has been facing. And of course, it’s not just retail. Everywhere we’ve been going through the pandemic, the economy has thrown a few curveballs at us recently. Cost of living, crisis, war. These are things that can feel really overwhelming. They can absolutely have a massive impact on us. And yet, unless we’re in a political role or very high up in some organisation, we can develop a vaccine. Whatever it is, we’re unable to do much about it and that can be so, so stressful.

If we focus only on all these huge things, it can cause us to blame and create resentment, whereas actually it’s far more empowering if we can look at. Hang on a second, what are the things that I can control? So, Stephen Covey, I think, the author of seven habits of highly effective people, talked about three the circle of concern, the circle of influence and the circle of control. So if you imagine almost three concentric circles, meaning you’ve got the concern, which of course is the biggest, I suppose, around the outside, everything that kind of you’re interested in and that, you know, you would perhaps like to get involved in, but you can’t really do anything about, it’s outside of your control and influence. The next medium sized one is the things that you can influence. There are some things you can do about it, but you can’t completely change it. And then, of course, the smallest one is always going to be the circle of control. The things that you actually can 100%, if even 100% control. So, as I said, focusing on what you can’t control actually makes you reactive and reduces what you can control.

It’s a bit counterproductive, counter intuitive, rather, and counterproductive that when focusing on all the things that I can’t do anything about, I’m neglecting to shift the things, calibrate, move things around that I actually can control. So I’m actually giving away my power again, blaming, resenting others and whether that’s people or organisations or circumstances, rather than taking back that power, if you can focus proactively on what you can control, that in fact expands what you can control. Happy days. So, okay, let’s have a think about what can’t you control? Right. And through the lens of what we’re talking about here, in terms of career and business and productivity and happiness and so on, right? You can’t control. And if you can, then let me know because I’d love to hear if I’ve got really powerful government, individuals or whatever that may be. Apologies as well if I’m being too nihilistic in saying that these are things I can’t do anything about. But with that caveat in mind, you generally can’t control as an individual part of general society, the wider economy and market forces, right? Global pandemics, cost of living, crisis, war, bigger supply chain issues in your organisation, whatever that may be, a little smaller.

You can’t control a toxic culture in an organisation. You can’t control how difficult clients that you’re working with behave. You can’t control how competitors in your industry are behaving. You can’t control if we’re going a bit more personal and micro here, when your kids get ill, what your partner decides to do in their career and so on, right? We’re getting perhaps more now into things that you could influence by, you know, eating healthily, getting lots of sleep, having a great constructive relationship with your partner. You can make sure that you’re taking care of yourself and your family’s health and happiness and you’re discussing big decisions together. But we can’t control those huge, big economic market, business forces and trends. Okay, fine, let’s assume we are focusing on those things. What will happen? Well, we’ll just be annoyed and distressed and upset and anxious.

I will just come home feeling awful that there’s nothing I can do about this awful boss who’s never letting me do this and always telling me to do that and micromanaging me and so on. Or oh my gosh, I can’t believe this client has emailed me on a Sunday evening. How dare they? Or oh, they’re trying to negotiate a cheaper price. Or oh my goodness, how come this person who seems far less capable than me, has so many more followers than me, has a TED talk, hash books and best selling blah blah blah, and is earning way more than me and et cetera, right? That’s hugely disempowering, frustrating, causes stress and means that we’re just obsessing, we’re comparing ourselves to other people, we’re feeling bad about ourselves and we’re not doing anything to change that situation. So putting those things to one side and in fact, why not? If you’re feeling productive, get a pen and paper, draw these three circles and put the various things that you’re thinking about and that you feel are impacting you and your business and your career and your life into these three circles. It’s quite an interesting practical exercise to do, not just a theoretical framework that I’m talking about. So if we think about what can you control if you’re going to be more proactive? Well, in the immediate term you can really control, you know, when you go to bed in the evening, what you’re eating and drinking and so on, how you show up, how you treat other people in the organisation. Even if a culture is awful, you don’t have to lie and mistrust and micromanage and all those things, right? You get to choose how you show up, even if that means you might not progress in that organisation.

You get to choose how you respond to things. This is a classic, right? And it’s easier said than done. All these quotes around, oh, you can’t control what life throws at you, but you can control how you respond to it. And responding versus reacting is a really interesting shift, actually. In coaching we talk about this kind of duality, that reacting is a bit like, you know, you throw a ball at me and I go ah. And I kind of just flip it back at you, responding. And I’m shifting this sports metaphor into tennis and racquetball because it’s on my mind at the moment as I’m learning to play these two sports, it’s very easy for a beginner intermediate like myself to just go ah, and just kind of think, I don’t have a lot of time, just not think at all and just whack it back, right. One of the biggest shifts that I’ve noticed and that my coach tells me is if I just take a moment, get my racket back, you know, look at the ball, think about where I want it to go, that will make all the difference.

That’s a few microseconds, you know, a few seconds maybe of difference in real life it could be 5 seconds. Taking a breath, deciding, okay, is this thing I’m going to say going to inflame the situation rather than improve it? Do I have to say this thing that I’m going to say? Or is that going to make my relationship with my partner, you know, more negative without really making any difference? They’re not going to change their behaviour anyway, right? If I moan and groan about their pants on the floor, whatever it is, right? Getting insight into my life at home. So choose how you can respond rather than reacting in anger or frustration or fear, whatever it is. From a business standpoint, you can choose who you do and don’t work with. So in the moment, I can be, yes, frustrated that someone is emailing me or some client as being difficult, but I can choose not to work with that specific client or that type of client. In the future, I might change teams, jobs, hours that I’m working in the mid to longer term, right? I can absolutely set clearer boundaries, enforce those boundaries, learn to say no, be more assertive, and so on. Again, shorter term, I can make certain shifts. Longer term, I can make bigger ones, I can change jobs, industries, organisations, I can shift my business model, I can have a gym routine that means that my strength will improve.

Longer term, my fitness, my health, and so on. In the immediate term, there are fewer things, but I still think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the things that you can and influence in the short term, at least. So, again, thinking about your situation, what is it that’s frustrating you at the moment? Where does it fall in those three categories, and what falls in the influence and control? How can you focus on those things? Applying this to the business situation always is this idea of, you know, the actions you’re taking versus the results you’re getting, and you can be frustrated about not getting the sales that you want, the revenue and so on. And you can focus on that by all means. It’s important to see the money coming in, and if you’re not focusing on that, that can be a problem in itself. However, I can’t control whether a client accepts my proposal or not. I can influence it by writing a great proposal that’s based on a really good call where I’ve understood their challenges and I know exactly the best solution for them, and so on. Even more upstream.

I can influence that by doing more lead generation, being more present on LinkedIn, upping my visibility, speaking to build my credibility, etcetera. Right. The longer term, I can influence and control way more things, and I can influence and control much more the actions I’m taking, the inputs, than I can necessarily the outputs I can control. And this gets into eating disorder territory. So apologies for that reference, but I can control what I eat. I can control when I go to bed, maybe not when I go to sleep. That’s a caveat. I can control how much water I’m drinking.

I can decide not to eat the or drink the five proseccos or whatever went to a girls night the other night. And so these are things I can think about. Right? It applies to fitness and health, it applies to relationship with your spouse, it applies to relationship with your kids, with your parents, with your friends with colleagues, and it applies to business, it applies to career. So again, huge, stressful, frustrating things that are really disempowering. If we focus exclusively on those things that we can’t control, they absolutely have implications for us. But unfortunately, there’s little nothing I can do about it. How can you shift your focus away from that bigger circle of concern into your circle of influence? Certainly, and into your circle of control? I think I always do a sort of potted evolutionary history when I say this, but I believe that in, you know, in the sort of long time ago, stone age type of erade, it was important to know what was going on. And that was quite a limited region, right? Limited geographical reach, to know if there was a sabre toothed tiger in the area.

There’s a foreign tribe that’s potentially competitive. And that’s really important to know today. Having news on all the time and understanding and getting into detail of awful things that are happening all around the world, unfortunately means that we’re confronted day to day with huge things that we can’t do much about. Now, I’m not advocating turning all that off and focusing completely selfishly on yourself, but I think perhaps somewhere in between would help. And if we all focus more on the things that we can control, being empathetic and helpful and contributing in our part of the world, I think that’s good news globally as well. So have a think about, have a look at what can you control, what can’t you, and how can you shift your focus every day, every morning, to say, okay, what can I do proactively, intentionally, to build that life that you want in the little moments that make up every day? Hope you found that interesting. I hope you found it thought provoking. I hope you come away with some insights.

Please do let me know how you get on. I’m always keen to hear how the episodes land. And of course, if you ever want to leave a rating and review, that’s hugely helpful to me and my little business and to help others like you find the podcast as well. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next week for the international week of happiness at work. Very exciting. See you then.

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