Keep Calm, Keep Control

What are the thoughts in your head today? Are they about the lovely Autumn colours, the golden leaves, the delight that your bus arrived on time, your nice cup of coffee, the joy at remembering all the right sports kit for school? No of course they’re not. If you are like the majority of us, then your thoughts will be dominated by negative and repetitive thoughts which range from berating ourselves for eating that biscuit to worrying about a meeting coming up, fretting about our family, anxious fears for the climate, the US election results, the state of the world….

There we go. 

We can swiftly escalate from whether we have put out the recycling bin to the US political administration set to bring destruction to the world within about 15 seconds. The thought path that is, destruction will take longer a lot longer, I hope.

The theory goes that the average person (never met one but hey ho) has 60,000 thoughts per day and 75% are negative with a whopping 95% repetitive in their nature. That is a lot of energy being expended and what good is it doing us? 

Often, we give those thoughts more ‘oxygen’ by talking about them. It’s worth reflecting on how much time we spend at work talking about how difficult something is (or someone) and how there is nothing to be done to improve.

It’s perfectly natural to start a conversation and compare stories about a situation, adding in ‘oh I’ve heard they….’, there is always a ‘they’ at the centre! During this expansion of the topic, we may feel good for a second with the whole camaraderie of it, but it doesn’t help. What it actually does is increase the evidence of being out of control and disempowered to do anything positive to improve things.

When coaching individuals and working with groups I tend to wheel out Stephen Covey’s circles of control, influence and concern about…ooh 100% of the time. The model works in that of course we can have lots in the outer circle of concern but the next smaller circle inside is that of influence – the reflective question being ‘even in a tiny way what can I do to influence?’ and even more tightly in the centre is that of control – ‘what can I truly control now?’ 

Sometimes, the only control we have right at that moment is to stop fretting, stop talking about it and give ourselves a rest. That’s what I leant into last week giving myself a break from the news. Not ideal as it is good to be informed but avoiding saturation was useful for my mental state.

Referring to this model with training programme cohorts has proven to be very useful over the years. I’ve heard back from training groups that the act of gently directing conversations towards the circles of control and influence rather than the ever-expanding mess of concern has been one of the most useful changes. They have reported that within their teams it has helped them to foster a more positive and action orientated culture, one where ownership and empowerment are at the heart.

So, we may not be able to influence the world stage, but we can control what we spend our precious energy on and over time will expand our circle of influence. A final thought on that is something I heard at a Marine Conservation event and it was: ‘Never mind Keep Calm and Carry On, I prefer Stay Angry and Get Organised’. Now that’s a good motto to channel energy!

Audrey Macnaughton is a leadership trainer and coach, and you can get in touch with her via audrey@2macs.com