Theories, articles, books, authors, philosophers have something to say about circles of influence, circles of concerns and their application on our different chooses in everyday life.
Our life doesn’t just “happen.” Whether we know it or not, it is carefully designed by us. The choices, after all, are ours. We choose happiness, sadness, decisiveness, success, even failure. Just remember every moment, every situation, provides a new choice. And in doing so, it gives us a perfect opportunity to do things differently to produce more positive results.
The author Stephen Covey, this great leadership guru defined two kinds of people in the world: proactive and reactive. To help define these terms, he created the concepts of the circle of influence-circle of concern.
Covey encourages us to only focus on concerns that we have control over. He outlines the “circle of concerns” as all of the stuff that worries us – and then a smaller “circle of influence” that only contains stuff that we can actually control.
His point, of course, is that we should only spend our energy on stuff that we can do something about. Focus only on problems that lie within our “circle of influence.” Covey defines proactive people as actively focusing on their circle of influence; instead of dwelling on problems they cannot change, they shift all of their concentration and energy to areas in which they can make a difference. By focusing on issues within their circle of influence, proactive people are the positive go-getters that help improve the world – and by doing so they broaden their circle of influence.
On the other hand, reactive people overlook their circles of influence and dwell on hopeless worries with no solution. Their negative thought patterns work to restrict their spheres of influence, as they only perceive and process issues that they cannot change. Reactive people feel impotent against life’s forces and tend to blame external circumstances for their shortcomings.
Proactive people focus on their circle of influence and passive people focus on their circle of concern. This choice has a huge impact on our ability to get what we want out of our life. Circle of concern is focusing on things out of our control like the weather, national debt, interest rates, and terrorism. Proactive people focus on things they can do something about: health, learning, relationships both at home, and work. Being proactive is being responsible for where our life is headed. It almost always involves people and subsequently our circle of influence.
A couple of tips on improving our circle on influence for the better are focus on habits – our own and those we wish to emulate and remove energy vampires and negativity.
By focusing on our circle of influence as opposed to our circle of concern, we choose to be proactive rather than reactive. We will find our self with no one to blame, less excuses and more positivity. Remember positive energy increases our circle of influence, negative energy decreases our circle of influence and you will be left to concern our self with the election, the weather, and other things out of our control.
