CHOOSE YOUR CIRCLE
(CIRCLE OF CONCERN & CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE)
"This traffic is terrible, why people don't follow the traffic rules because of such people I have to suffer"
"My favourite political party is not getting expected success, it makes me nervous."
" My father is bedridden for long time, I am worried about him."
"My boss doesn't behave well with the staff, it's really irritating "
"I try hard to make my colleagues feel better, but they don't notice me and it's killing me".
"It's raining outside. I have fed up with this continuous rain."
"I would have done it but no one supported me."
"My family doesn't support me in my business so I feel discouraged."
"My relatives gossip about me and it makes me unhappy."
"I sincerely want to do it but what will people think of me."
You must have seen people around you expressing problems and challenges in their lives. You are also facing such problems in your life, aren't you? Everyone has to face problems and challenges in their personal, social or professional life. The problems can be anything, they can be people around you, daily life situations, your unchangeable past or unpredictable future , or an environment that you live in. Nobody can live avoiding these life challenges. You have to face them. They are inevitable.These challenging situations create profound impact on your life. They influence your thoughts, emotions and behaviour too.
Challenging situations can make you stronger or weaker, powerful or powerless and it's all depend on how you treat the problematic situations. What approach you take towards them.
Generally challenging situations are your concerns. They make you think continuously about them. You strive to get solutions. You go through mental ups and downs. Sometimes these situations pressurized you so much that you go out of your sense to get the solutions. It kills your rational thinking. Sometimes you get proper solutions easily but the most of the times you withdraw with negative feelings making situations more complicated. Do you really want to get rid off the unwanted feelings of anxiety, stress, depression, anger, worries, irritation,frustration and helplessness that you have due to everyday challenges and problems? Yes, you really do want.
Here is the solution. In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey has developed a module to deal effectively with the concerns. He is distinguishing all the concerns in two parts
Circle of concern and Circle of influence
In your everyday life you come across thousand of situations that make you concern. You take a lot of efforts to change them but you can't do anything as they are out of your control. You have no control on them. Whatever efforts you take they all go in vain and slowly you start feeling negative. You become more anxious, irritating and frustrated. You start complaining about the situations and blaming the people around you. These all happen in circles of concern. Focusing on the challenges in the circle of concern drains your energy. You loose your patience. You become helpless.
For instance think about your concern of what people think about you. your concern about increasing inflation or the national debt or a nuclear war . Does your concern going to bring any change into them? Not at all. It brings you only pain. It makes you helpless and anxious without any solution. As they don't have your direct involvement. Such situations are far away from your mental or emotional involvement. You have no real control on them. This approach makes you reactive. You just get stuck with the problems only. You look for the weaknesses in the people around you and find negativity in everything involved in the situation. Your focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language and increased feeling of victimization.
Inspite of focusing on the concerns out of your control, when you focus on the things that you can do something about or you can control , you are in circles of influence. Here you get all the power and energy. You start by asking to yourself ' what can I do? What is in my control? This brings you positivity. You don't expect others to change but the change begins from you. As you start focusing on your part and your role of solving the problems, you become proactive. You get fine solutions to the problems, when you have a direct control over the problems. Making a small changes into your habits and behaviour, you gain hold on the situations. As you continuously think about the things in your control, your circle of influence begins to enlarge and Circle of concern begins to shrink. You start believing in yourself. You take responsibility of your life. Circle of influence helps you to utilise your time and energy for your own betterment.
There is a serenity prayer says,"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Firstly identify the situations and challenges in your life. Decide what can you do in concern of all of them. What is in your control? What can you change? What possible steps can you take? Thinking about the things in your control and acting upon them makes you more powerful and positive. it makes you proactive where you get ready to face the challenges. You overcome the life situations easily.
Here are the things that you really have control on
Your being
Your beliefs
Your attitude
Your thoughts
Your prespective
Your being choice
How honest you are
What books you read
How often you exercise
How you treat yourself
How much risk you take
What and How you eat
How kind you are to others
How you interpret situations
How you express your thoughts
How many times you smile in a day
Who you associate yourself with
What do you do with your spare time
How you earn or invest money
How often you give time to appreciate your life
Whether or not you try after a setback
and many more
You can not choose the challanges and situations in your life but the good news is that you are free to choose your responses to the challenges. Focusing on the circle of influence makes your choices stronger enough to live life full of positivity and proactively.
Watch the next video to know more about circle of concern and circle of influence
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