📘 Fill your circle of concern with your circle of control

And you'll be more effective and happier

The morning after

If you’re a Chiefs or Eagles fan, you’re elated. If you’re a Bengals or 49ers fan, not so much. And if you’re my daughter, you couldn’t care less either way:

Here she is in the family group text:

I found myself more upset than I’d expect last night.

I scrolled Twitter reading the “NFL is rigged” hot takes and looking at screengrabs of obvious holds that weren’t called. “Yeah! YEAH!!! THIS IS UNFAIR!” I felt.

But only for a second.

I knew I was being irrational. Am I really going to let what happened in a game in Kansas City bring me down, affect my mood, change my week? Something that I have absolutely no control over?

I tucked my son in to bed and told him, “It’s a bummer, but man what a fun season that was. It’s so cool to have a team that is a contender. It makes it so much more exciting. I had a great time watching it with you.”

Concern and control

Everyone has a circle of concern. These are the things that take up the majority of your brain space. The things you worry about. These are the things that “keep you up at night.”

Within that circle is a smaller circle: your circle of control. (It’s always smaller, that’s human nature.) These are the things that you personally have the ability to affect. The things for which you have the ability to change the outcome.

What do your circles look like? If your circle of control is wayyy smaller, that means you spend A LOT of time worrying yourself over things you have no ability to change.

I bet you know people out there trying to get through the day like this:

Yikes. These people are angry, fired up, upset at everyone and everything, but when it comes to doing things about it….. not so much.

The most effective and healthiest situation is to TRY to get the circle of control to fill the circle of concern as fully as you can. Either by concerning yourself with things you can change, or by increasing your authority and ability to affect positive change for the things you care about (much more difficult but also important).

The Bengals season was fun, but my week is gonna go lots better if I replace negative thoughts about that game with things I can control: week 2 of my teaching semester at Miami, new Channel 3 features, showing love to Laura and my kids.

None of this is original

There are lots of really great posts and diagrams about Circle of Control/Concern. Many include a Circle of Influence, which is a good add.

I believe Stephen Covey is the originator of this. Here’s a good diagram that I did not make that sums it up pretty well.

How this relates to The Dad

I mentioned in last week’s post how The Dad team had chips on our shoulders in the early days of The Dad that remained throughout my time leading it up.

I spent a ton of time worrying about where The Dad stood in the parent company portfolio’s priority, whether we were getting the resources or budget we deserved. I spent many nights not sleeping, wondering if there were leaders in the company who were apathetic about our success or even actively hoping we’d fail.

Was any of this true? Maybe I was paranoid. Decent chance. But what I’m saying is either way, it doesn’t matter. That energy would’ve been better spent in other places. It would have made us more effective and would’ve made me less miserable on those nights where I was tormented by my own circle of concern.

At this point in The Dad Story, it’s early 2018. Just a few months into our existence, we’ve had several viral hits. We are building a following faster than any brand I’ve ever seen.

And we’re just getting started.