“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength” by Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher
Sometimes we get very upset about something and start muddling around about it. And then we hear from someone close to us ‘so, what made you so upset/crazy?’ The thing is, our reaction to events depend solely on us and how we see a world with our lenses. Given different perspective or having an event happened in different times, our response could be completely different.
Get The Best Version of Yourself
Imagine now that you wake up in the morning and realize this is the same day as yesterday. And another day is the same and another too. What would you do?
Some of you may already recall a very reclaimed movie “Groundhog Day” – a move released in early ‘90. The movie directed by Harold Ramis is still fresh, funny and engaging. The main character played by all time great Bill Murray is a weather forecaster sent to a little town in Pennsylvania where every year a groundhog predicts when spring will come.
For the next 100 minutes we watch our hero waking on the greyhound day over and over again. The events are every time the same, it’s our character who is changing. Given so many chances to play the same day, our character finally became a good human. I know that Hollywood likes happy ending. But that movie really gives us perspective on inability to influence external events. On contrary, we can influence our response to those events. And yes, we can hope for a happy ending.
Circles of Events
The idea of power of mind is brilliantly explained in now classic “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey.
Covey distinguishes between things that concern us but are outside of our scope of influence from those that we actually can influence. The author uses terms: ‘Circle of Concern’ ( all those things and events that concern us) and ‘Circle of Influence’ (everything that we can influence).
Pandemic is a great example of an event from Circle of Concern. Little could we do to prevent it from happening. Yet, our lives are turned upside down with little warning of what’s coming.
Let’s look closer at this example. When our governments introduced in spring of 2020 new measures to slow down spread of the pandemic, many of us were forced to stay at home. Without regular activities that keep us running, we easily found ourselves in a vacuum.
It was within us whether we look for alternative to what we regularly do. It was within us to keep ourselves from turning into a spectator of both our live passing by and Netflix. So while we could not influence outside measures that the government introduced, we could influence our response.
First rule of 7 Habits is called ‘Be Proactive’. Be proactive means taking responsibility for the outcome. And not letting the river take us with the stream.
Climb that ladder
Interestingly, by sharpening our future, we actually increase our zone our influence. Some of the examples of how that could turn out: a course taken in the pandemic can bring us closer to our dreamed job. Old hobby that got a boost in the pandemic may become our future source of pride. Or source of income. Old acquaintances may become our best new buddy only because we invested more time in getting to know them.
As much as a theory of circles of influence, there are areas of our life that we cannot keep up with managing and just try to survive.
At those thought times, it was a coach who helped me understand that I am the one to help myself out.
We owe ourselves that our values are respected and our needs met. While we have different techniques and tricks to handle that, most of us has a quite good idea of what we want and how to get there.
Yet, we focus on some areas more and in some areas we lag. It’s understandable, we usually take tasks in areas where we feel good at. However, this way we let others and other circumstances decide the outcome.
Only when we find strength within ourselves and this readiness to tackle those areas that are both important and can be influenced by us, we get behind a steering wheel of our life. At the beginning it may be intimidating or scary and not always let us to success. Yet, unless we try, we always depend on others making choices on your behalf.
Try or Not
Easy to say, tough to do? I am with you on this. If that easy our lives will be like a straight road without any bumps. Could that ever be interesting? Give me a shout if you feel the subject is close to your heart.
