One of Stephen Covey’s most powerful principles (in my view) is his notion of the circle of influence and circle of concern. He talks about all of us having a circle of influence (no matter how big or small) and a circle of concern that surrounds the circle of influence. Regardless of whether we are Joe average or a high flyer, we all have aspects of our life we have direct influence over and other aspects that we have little or no influence over. In Covey’s view, effective people live and operate within their circle of influence and focus on how they can expand their influence. Less effective people spend too much time worrying about things that are in their circle of concern that they have little chance of influencing. If you hear language like “If only my teacher were more interesting” or “I would have got an A if I’d had more time to study” - that’s indicative of the speaker living in their circle of concern.
Career advice - locus of control
So, what does this have to do with career choices? Well, quite a lot actually. If your mindset is “I’d like to be an Engineer, but my maths isn’t good enough”, this might be an example of someone living in their circle of concern OR it may be that the speaker is being realistic and that with the best will in the world, their maths will not be up to it. A student who “gets it” and really wants to be an Engineer will leave no stone unturned in trying to improve their maths in order to progress. Often the academic hurdles are just that…. they’re hurdles to jump over. Once you’re in the job, if you have the passion, you’ll do fine (and there’s always your PC to do the maths for you)!
So, don’t give up. By giving up (giving up to your circle of concern) you’re restricting your career choices. Focus on what you can influence. By doing that you’ll move forward. You might not get to the ultimate goal, but you’ll take a lot of steps in the right direction.
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This is very true. Sometimes we focus on the negative and all the reasons as to why we can’t do something. When actually when we put our mind and energy into something we’re more than capable of achieving it!