How to stop drifting with the professional tide: The circle of influence

Eleven years of a career without once asking what he really wanted

This is the story of a brilliant professional who came to my session. He had an eleven-year career behind him and did not know where he was going, professionally speaking. Let’s call him Lorenzo.

Lorenzo had a CV that anyone would envy. He had started in audit at one of the Big Four, jumped into consultancy, led transformation projects in the real estate sector, managed teams, and learnt everything.

And yet, when we started talking, he said something that left me thinking. He told me: “I’ve never sat down to ask myself what I’m good at, what’s out there in the market that fits my strengths, or what gaps I have. I’ve just gone wherever the tide has taken me.”

Eleven years. Brilliant careers. Positions of responsibility. And the feeling of never having truly chosen.

The reactive career in decision-making

When we reviewed his trajectory, the pattern was clear:

• He was made redundant from a company → he looked for a job.
• He was called for a project → he accepted.
• Something wasn’t working → he left.
• He was contacted with an offer → he said yes.

Each move made sense at the time. Each change was logical given the circumstances. But none came from a clear vision of what Lorenzo wanted to build.

And now, he was at a company with a leadership style he described as “tyrannical”. Working from nine to nine. No time for his family. No sense of moving forward anywhere.

“There’s no way out of this. I come home to the kids, I carry on working afterwards, but it’s unsustainable. This would kill anyone.”

The problem wasn’t that Lorenzo was passive. Quite the opposite. He was an ambitious, curious professional, eager to learn. The problem was that all his energy was spent reacting to what came his way, rather than building towards where he wanted to go.

The Circle of Concern vs the Circle of Influence

Stephen Covey developed a concept that explains very well what was happening to Lorenzo. Covey distinguished between two circles:

• The Circle of Concern encompasses everything that affects us, but over which we have little or no control. The job market. Your company’s decisions. Restructuring. Redundancies. The economy.
• The Circle of Influence is what we can act upon. Our decisions. Our skills. Our clarity about what we want. Our conversations. Our next steps.

When we live in the Circle of Concern, we react. We wait for things to happen. We move when we are pushed. When we live in the Circle of Influence, we act. We make decisions before circumstances force us to.

Lorenzo had spent eleven years in the Circle of Concern. Not due to a lack of talent or ambition, but because he had never paused to define from where he wanted to act.

Four steps to make decisions from your circle of influence and stop drifting with the tide

1. Pause and ask yourself the question you’ve never asked before

The question is simple but uncomfortable: What do I want?

Not what I should want. Not what others expect of me. Not what opportunities are out there. What do I really want?

Lorenzo had never truly asked himself this question. He had had intuitions. He had noticed that he liked certain things more than others. But he had never sat down to structure it.

When I asked him to tell me what topics he was passionate about, he started talking about company culture, people management, organisational transformation, and understanding people. Everything he mentioned had a common thread: people. But he hadn’t seen it that way. Because he had never paused to look.

Practical exercise: Spend 30 minutes writing down, without filtering, what topics passion you, what problems you like to solve, and what kind of people you like to work with. Afterwards, look for the common thread.

2. Identify the pattern of your past decisions

Review your last three or four career changes. Not to judge yourself, but to understand. Ask yourself in each case:

• Did I decide on this change, or did circumstances decide it for me?
• Was I clear about what I was looking for, or was it simply better than what I had before?
• Did I know what I was saying YES to, or did I only know what I was saying NO to?

Lorenzo discovered that almost all his changes had been reactive. That doesn’t mean they were mistakes. It means he lacked his own criteria to evaluate them.

When circumstances decide for you, they occasionally get it right. But when you decide from a clear vision, the probabilities of getting it right increase exponentially.

Practical exercise: Create a timeline of your recent career changes. For each one, note: what triggered it, what you were looking for, and whether you achieved it.

3. Define your decision filter

A decision filter is a set of criteria that helps you evaluate opportunities before they arrive. Not afterwards, when you are already in the interview and they are asking you about your salary expectations.

The filter can include questions such as:

• What kind of problems do I want to solve?
• What kind of people do I want to work with?
• What style of leadership do I need around me?
• What work-life balance is non-negotiable for me?
• What impact do I want to have?

Lorenzo had never defined these criteria. And that is why every opportunity seemed good or bad depending on the circumstances of the moment. He didn’t have a stable framework to evaluate them.

When he began to build that filter, something changed. He stopped feeling adrift. Because although he still didn’t know exactly what the next step was, he was already clear on what questions to ask to find it.

Practical exercise: Define your five non-negotiable criteria. Write them down. Keep them handy for when the next opportunity comes along.

4. Act from your Circle of Influence

This means to stop waiting for things to happen and start generating movement from what you do control.

Concrete examples:

• Meeting three people from an industry that interests you for a coffee to hear about their experiences.
• Reviewing your CV, not to look for a job, but to see what story it tells about you and if it’s the story you want to tell.
• Having a conversation with your boss about what they expect from you, not because they ask you to, but because you need to know in order to make your own decisions.

Lorenzo decided that his first action would be to have an honest conversation with his managing director. Not to complain, but to share his concerns, propose solutions, and understand what was expected of him.

Whatever the answer, he would have information to make a decision. That is acting from the Circle of Influence.

Practical exercise: Define a concrete action that you can take this week. Something that depends solely on you. And do it.

The difference between reacting and building

Your career does not have to be a succession of reactions to what the market places in front of you. It can be a conscious construction towards where you want to go.

This does not mean you have to have everything figured out. Lorenzo didn’t. But when he started asking himself the right questions, he stopped feeling adrift. Because clarity doesn’t come before you act. It comes while you act, but from within your Circle of Influence.

If you are experiencing a similar situation that you would like to work through with support, Sibega’s personalised coaching is designed precisely for this. We help you define your decision filter and build your career from what you want, rather than from what circumstances impose on you.