Circle of control

Don’t sweat the…. stuff you can’t control

Recently we have been talking as a team about how we found the news to be feeding our fear and increasing our anxiety around the recent situation. What will it mean for our health, for parents, children’s education, the financial situation?

We recognised in ourselves that this was not healthy for us and impacted on our personal wellbeing. We noticed that our mood was low and we were demonstrating behaviours that we often call at Pro-Development “mood hoovers”.

Much of the news we were receiving was based on reporters’ perceptions and hypothetical situations, and a lot of the facts were from the 5pm briefings. We therefore made the decision to stop watching the constant feed of news and limit our intake to once or twice a day. We recognised that we can’t change the situation, but we could change how exposed we are to the hype and spin which was feeding our fears.

It was this reflection that reminded us of the work of Covey and his Circle of Influence; that is, instead of reacting to or worrying about conditions over which we have little or no control/influence, we should focus our time and energy on things we can control and influence.

Of course, we are concerned about the current health situation and yes, of course we are concerned about the impact on over 70s with isolation, and of course we are concerned about the GCSE situation. And we are concerned about the impact this will have on our economy and Pro-Development. However, we cannot do anything to change what has happened or is happening.

We can however focus on keeping our parent’s spirits high, keeping our children busy, keeping ourselves healthy by doing Joe Wicks every day (well, maybe not every day). We have taken steps at Pro-Development to protect the long term of the business and continue to support our clients as best we can. We are consciously taking a proactive approach over the things we can influence and/or control, and it feels good and positive, and right now, that’s exactly what we need.

Our challenge to you …

List at least 5 things you can proactively influence/control today?