The Circles of Control and Influence... and our income and expenditure
Recently, in a workshop we were running for academic leaders, my friend Cathy Thompson led an exercise on a framework from the work of Stephen Covey (author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).
The framework is this: we can divide the things that happen in our work and lives into three categories, generally imagined as three concentric circles.
The outer circle is the Circle of Concern. These are things we care about or are interested in, but can do nothing about. The weather would be one example; large scale macroeconomics would be another (unless you’re a Chancellor or the Governor of the Bank of England, in which case that might fall into the middle circle).
The middle circle is the Circle of Influence. These are things over which you don’t have direct control, but you can wield some influence. This might be the decisions your company makes, or the relationship you have with your significant other.
The circle in the centre is the Circle of Control. These are the things that you can affect even alone. Your internal thoughts, your response to what happens in the world and more.
There is a fourth circle, I suppose, with all the things you don’t care about in it, but… well, you don’t care about them, so what does that matter?
It is a powerful exercise to think about situations that you wish were different and work out what lies in what circle.
For example, to remember a saying that seems to have originated with Alfred Wainwright - there is no bad weather, only unsuitable clothing. That is a great way of taking something from the Circle of Concern, and working out what we have about that situation that is within the Circle of Control. I don’t want to get wet, but I can’t stop it raining. I can, however, buy a decent jacket or umbrella.
When reflecting on the exercise this time, though, I noticed something about our finances that I’d never seen before.
Reflecting on the money in my business and life, I realised that income and expenditure lie in different circles.
And when I slowed down, I realised that is true for every person and every company. (If I’m wrong about this, do let me know!)
That is: income lies in the Circle of Influence, but expenditure lies in the Circle of Control.
This makes sense - income is always a relational move. Someone gives you money (often in exchange for something).
Expenditure involves money that is already yours (or that you are choosing to borrow).
Of course things don’t neatly fit into one of the circles - not everything in the Circle of Influence is identical. You have far more influence over your income if it is a salaried position than if you run your own business. But it is still only in the Circle of Influence, even with the ‘secure’ salaried job. To maintain your job, you have to continue to do the tasks assigned to you and maintain some kind of relationship with the people around you. Even the most secure employers sometimes let people go.
It is even clearer, of course, in a business like mine. I really can’t control if I have clients, but I can control if I am client-prone: I can create the conditions that make it more likely I have more clients (for example, connecting with more people, inviting people into coaching conversation, making proposals for the kind of work I want to do).
This matters because, like the rain and the umbrella, some things are easier to effect than others. I’ve written before about how often the move when our finances aren’t as we want is to first stop things getting worse - the bits completely in our control. And then move to making things better: the things we can only influence.
Of course we are human, so we have to factor our psychology into the situation. As I’ve written before, the move that made all the difference for me was to take control fo what happened to money when it came in: saving for tax, for the moments of famine and more.
And with income, if we want to live in a world where significantly more income is possible, we need to think about how we can influence that - how do we create a situation where it is possible, or even likely, that that change happens.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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