The circle of influence

I think it was 7 years ago that I was forced to think seriously about the Circle of Influence. I was still in the army and had a coaching session with a higher officer. At that point in time I was mostly worried about everything that the higher army command was not doing. They didn't give us the proper equipment, or enough soldiers to fill the units and still expected us to perform miracles and prepare the units for deployment. The captain asked me how it was going and I probably went in another long speech about how everything was impossible to do and that if people would just give me everything I needed, I would do what I was supposed to do. 

The captain pulled out the circles of influences and tried to get me to refocus on the things I did have influence over and could control. While he was probably trying to help me find some happiness in my daily work, I did not perceive it that way and assumed that this was his way of covering for the senior staff and trying to get me to fix their problems. 

It took a couple of years and a few new jobs to start to understand the concept of control & influence and this mostly happened by reading and practicing Greek & Indian philosophies. I started reading works from the stoics and began studying the yoga sutras and now Samkhya Karika and through this I started to make a lot of connections that helped me understand the concept further. The most important part was that it gave me practical tools and insights to experience the benefits of the concept. In this article, I will present the model as proposed by Stephan R. Covey in 1989 and will explain it using statements and messages from the Stoic and Indian philosophers.

The model and added practices can help us to focus on things within our influence and in the end become more happy and productive in our daily lives. 

The model describes 3 circles: The circle of control, influence, and the circle of concern. Let's work from the outside in and this is also the order in which you can do an exercise for yourself.

Start with writing down anything that concerns you. ANYTHING!

This will range from your health to nuclear war, what your boss thinks of you, the problems you are having with your partner, earthquakes, whether you are smart enough, and so on.

Now the first thing we want to separate are the things beyond our control and influence. This is our circle of concern or external circle. Things we worry about, and talk about at birthday parties when there are no fun topics to discuss but have no control over. Go ahead and write them down in a circle like the example below:

Now there are a couple of notes here that are important. Influence does not mean I can control, or have any say in the outcome of what happens. For example "How much my partner loves me". I can be nice, kind, friendly, show interest, be empathic, plan adventures together, but it does not add up or give me the right to expect love from another. That is simply beyond our control or influence. This sounds logical when I write it down but everybody can remember a friend "being dumped" and then spouting out sentences like: "I have done this and this and it was never enough!". I used an example of a friend because none of us has ever done this ourselves of course ;-). 

Now in the oft chance that Vladimir Putin is reading this: Yes, you do influence foreign politics and Nuclear war! The circle above could work for a person like myself, but not for Putin, Joe Biden, Netanyahu, or the leaders of Hamas. So you can see that at any given time in life, our circle will change based on our level of influence in the world. And yes we can, to a certain degree, control and influence how much.

The second step is to write down what we can influence. These are the things we have no direct control over but can influence our behavior. This is the circle where (not how) we operate when we are in contact with the outside world. In the next image, a couple of examples are filled in again and you can do the same for yourself. 

Circles of influence (Stephen R. Covey, 1989)

By this time you will probably understand the concept, but the most important question remains. How? How can I be in full control of my thoughts? My thoughts are also a reaction to how the world deals with me. How many times have I lay in my bed at night not being able to stop my thoughts and sleep? How do I stop my brain from worrying about the wrong things? 

If you can recognize the problem, it is certainly not a new one! The philosophy of Samkhya and Yoga is built upon this issue. Philosophies that are at least 5000 years old. The Stoics, starting around 2300 years ago, believed that a person should live a virtuous life focused on what is in their control. Let's look at some examples to clarify how this can help with our happiness and efficiency.

The father of Stoicism Epidectimus wrote: "Some things are within our control and others are not. Within our control are our opinions, desires, aversions, choices: whatever is truly our own. Not up to us are our bodies, property, reputation, station in life: whatever is truly not our own ... Desire only those things in your control, and even then, tread lightly, with deliberation and caution."

Epidectimus explains that we should direct our energy only on our circle of control. Whether we like it or not we have the ability to focus our mind on what we want to focus on. Energy can only be given once and spending it on your external circle will prevent you from spending it on things within your control. Thus creating an annoying circle effect that keeps getting worse and worse. 

Another famous Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, stated the following: "Will anyone despise me? That’s within their power, not mine. I will concentrate instead on not doing or saying anything worthy of contempt."

Again, instead of spending time worrying about what others might think focus on becoming the right person in your own eyes which is within your control. Whatever happens beyond that piece of control we should learn to let go. Marcus Aurelius was an Emporer of the Roman Empire so I think that kind of pushes away any arguments we might have about things being too complex to apply to us. The practice for ourselves here is to learn to recognize when we are busy with the external circle and when we treat our circle of influence like our circle of control. You may have made your circles by now, or otherwise, you can make them and use it to reflect on yourself. Pick a period, for example, a week, and every evening go over the 2 practices and reflect for yourself. You will see that if you do it consistently you will start to recognize your actions sooner and eventually in the moment and even before :)

We see similar concepts in Indian philosophies. Ravi Ravindra in his explanation of the Bhagavad Ghita (one of the 2 most important scriptures for Yogis) states that one of the main characters (Arjuna, who is having difficulty accepting his role in a big war and the actions he should undertake) should focus on learning to become the right actor, rather than focus on the right actions. Becoming the right actor means that we focus on what we can change in ourselves and our thoughts rather than worrying if we undertake the right actions. If you become the right actor, the right actions will follow. 

An even more interesting comparison can be found in the Samkhya and Yogic concept of Dukha - suffering. They describe 3 forms of suffering: suffering from ourselves, from others, and from nature. Suffering from nature means things like earthquakes (External circle). Suffering from others means other people's actions (something we cannot control but at most influence). And finally suffering from ourselves means the things we do to hurt ourselves. It is explained that we mostly harm ourselves with our thoughts and speculations and that if we want to get freedom from this suffering we need to work on our minds.

Yoga is described as "arresting or calming the fluctuations or modifications of the mind". The practice of yoga (in this case I mean the full practice of yoga with for example breathing techniques, meditations, studying, etc.) will enhance your mental and physical health by helping you to focus better on what is within your control rather than outside - your own mind and body. Thereby bringing the focus to the circle of control rather than the circles of influence and the external circle.

So we can see that this is not a modern problem, but that it has been existing for at least 5000 years and probably much longer. While a full study of Stoicism and Yoga is far beyond the scope of this article, we can see that studying these practical philosophies and taking lessons from them can help us to develop ourselves and our personal leadership. The comparison is off course not direct and if we want to apply either we need to study these philosphies individually.

Thanks to Mr. Stephen Covey we can also enjoy a modern-day model with similar topics which we can use to enhance our happiness and performance. We can choose to incorporate several mental practices into this exercise to enhance it or stay with the model as is.

So what is the end goal? If we connect it to our previous articles, we can see how this ties in with motivation. We spoke about how our need for autonomy influences our motivation and that it comprehends more than our actual responsibilities and liberties, but also how we perceive control.

With practices that help us focus more on what we can control rather than worry about things we can't, we automatically will have a higher level of motivation, and thus happiness and performance.

Now there are a lot more practicalities that I couldn't cover in this article and of course, every person's circle and experience is different. If you want further practical help with your circles, feel free to contact me :)

Influence means that I do what I think is right (with actions from my circle of control) and try to accept whatever the consequences will be. You will see that most things that we put in the circle of influence will have 2 levels: We can influence a part but the results are completely out of our control. I will come back to how to deal with this with some examples later.

Finally, we have the circle of control. The things we can directly control. There is a list in the example below, but basically, it only revolves around 3 things: My actions, my words, and my thoughts. The choices that I make, the attitude that I have, and my work ethic all come from these 3 and one above all: our thoughts. 

In his book, Covey uses the circles of influence to give people a tool to become more proactive in their own lives. In personal leadership, as you have read or can read in the first article, we are looking for more influence on our own lives through taking ownership of it. This is being proactive. In his book Covey uses a couple of quotes but one nicely connects with my story above: "They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them." - Mahatma Gandhi. 

In my endeavor of becoming a good officer in the army, I had connected my self-respect and self-love to the performance of the army as a whole rather than who I was as a person. It is an easy way not to take responsibility for your actions in life and leads to blaming rather than taking action. After leaving the army it took me quite a while to overcome this(naturally I made the same mistake with my next employers). 

Books that are interesting and read quite nicely I used as source material:

How To Be A Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living by Massimo Pugliucci

The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey

Source material books that are still very interesting but maybe a bit more difficult to read:

The Bhagavad Gita: A Guide to Navigating the Battle of Life by Ravi Ravindra

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

The Enchiridion by Epictetus