Quote: “Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about.” – Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
Dear World,
In the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey reveals a lot of insight into changing the course of your life and adapting a winning mindset. One of the illustrations that stood out to me was the comparison of the proactive focus and reactive focus. He uses concepts to distinguish between things that you can’t directly control such as your circumstances or other people’s behavior (Circle of Concern) and things that you can actually do something about (Circle of Influence). When you focus your thoughts and energy on the Circle of Influence, the nature of the energy is positive and magnifying, it causes the Circle of Influence to grow. There are more things you can do to change your reality. So many times opportunities come in the form of setbacks, disappointments, failures; but the only thing that separates them from being opportunities is how you view them. When solutions become your first response to problems, you’ll realize opportunities approach you everyday! On the contrary, when you focus on the Circle of Concern, things like the weaknesses of other people around you and problems in your environment you can’t change, you cause your Circle of Influence to reduce. Yes, you’ll never see what you can do to effectively change your situation if you never train your mind to do it! I want to encourage you to focus on what you can do. Ask yourself questions like, “What am I doing to add to my situation? What more could I be doing in my role to benefit the team? What can I do right at this moment to change this?” Avoid blaming others or your environment around you, no matter how true it may be. Why? Because the more you do, the less you can do about it.
Sincerely,
Mr. 3 Cent$