One of my favorite teachings comes from an author named Stephen Covey.
Some of you may have heard of Stephen Covey.
He wrote a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,
And it's a book that you will often find in genres like self-development or even success education,
As it's called sometimes.
But one of the things Stephen talks about is how we need to win what he calls private victories before we win public victories.
And this particular teaching is suited to these private victories,
Victories we need to win with ourselves before we even consider anything like success.
This teaching Stephen calls the circle of influence and the circle of concern.
You may be able to get a sense of what it's about just by its name.
Imagine two circles,
One inside of the other.
The smaller circle on the inside is our circle of influence.
It's in this circle that all the things that we have some control over ought to go.
Things like our diet,
For example,
Something which we can all take a look at in these times as it has a tremendous impact on our immune system.
Outside of our circle of influence and in our circle of concern are things that it's good for us to know about.
For example,
The guidelines that the world governments are putting into place right now to control the coronavirus.
But these are not in our circle of influence unless we happen to be a government official in which we may have some influence.
These are in our circle of concern and where we can end up costing ourselves an awful lot of energy is by being confused about which circle something ought to go in.
So that if I put the restrictions that are being placed upon our movement right now in my circle of influence in confusion and I think that I have some power to change these rules,
Well,
I'm going to be wasting energy because actually there's not anything that I can do.
At the very best,
Limited to my own home,
I suppose I could start or sign a petition or I could write letters.
Those I suppose could come within our circle of influence.
But honestly,
In a time like this,
It's unlikely that that's even going to do so much.
Now things that are in my circle of influence are things like making sure that I'm not going to be in a lot of trouble.
Things like making sure I have enough groceries,
Getting my affairs in order regarding business,
And then having a nice time and being of service to those around me.
Thinking about ways that I can bring a smile to everyone who I'm cohabiting with in isolation.
So that's my circle of influence.
Things that are in my circle of concern might be the way that this situation is unfolding around the world.
Certainly the way that it's unfolding in my local area would be in my circle of concern.
Things that are outside even my circle of concern are things like what Boris Johnson is thinking.
There's no way I can know that.
There's certainly no way I can influence it.
I don't know the guy.
Even if I had his phone number,
There probably wouldn't be much that I could do to get a real sense of how he's thinking and I doubt very much that he'd want to hear from me about how to change that.
So by getting clear about what goes in our circle of influence really what we can actually influence and what goes outside of that in our circle of concern and what even goes outside of that,
Things that it's just not worth us concerning ourselves with,
We start to use our energy and our attention more effectively.
What happens then is that actually our circle of influence expands.
When I put my attention and my energy into things that I can actually influence instead of wasting it on things that I can't,
I'm going to be more effective.
When I put my energy into bringing happiness to the people who I'm cohabiting with,
We all work more effectively as a team to get through this interesting and challenging time.
When I put my attention on my diet,
On making healthy choices for what I put into my body,
Then I boost my immune system and hopefully I fight off this nasty virus that we're all so concerned with.
That might save me two weeks of illness and I'm certainly going to be more effective,
Healthy throughout those two weeks than I would be unhealthy.
I also boost the chances of saving those around me from being infected and then we can continue to help one another out.
So you can see,
Even with this simple example,
How that circle of influence begins to expand when we get exclusive,
When we get very clear about what belongs in that circle.
