The Circle of Concern

Are you worrying about the right things?

There is a wonderful concept that Stephen R. Covey talks about in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.

It is the Circle of Concern. It basically contains all of the things we think about:

• life, career, family, house, car, world, news, etc.

In this circle of concern, there is another circle: the Circle of influence.

This smaller circle contains everything we can influence in our lives. And the author argues that this is the circle we should focus on.

Here is a very basic example I drew:

There can be many more categories in there, and politics may fall in the circle of influence for you. The secret is to figure out which falls where for you.

Worrying about things you can’t control will only drain you of everything you should be putting into what you can influence.