🗞️ The Wellness Briefing – Edition No.18: “Focus On What You Can Control” | October 28, 2025

3 minute read

Quick, high-impact wellness insights for ambitious professionals. Delivered Tuesdays.

Welcome Back to The Wellness Briefing

In a world overflowing with alerts, breaking news, pivots, and fire-drills, the real pressure doesn’t come from what you can’t control—it comes from trying to control everything.

This week we’re stepping back to the strategic art of focus: how to reclaim your time, energy and clarity even in stressful, uncertain times by applying the classic “Spheres of Control” framework. Because leadership isn’t about shouldering everything—it’s about doing what matters, despite what is going on around you.

Let’s begin.

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🧠 1 Insight Worth Reading: According to research on the “Circles of Control, Influence & Concern,” individuals who direct their attention to what they can influence or control not only feel less stressed, but are demonstrably more effective. Read article on Positive Psychology.

For leaders beset by turbulence, the ability to distinguish between controllable levers and uncontrollable noise is a performance advantage.

💡 What That Means for You: When you’re drowning in distractions—budget changes, market headwinds, personnel shifts—your first move must be narrowing your field of concern.

• What must you fix today? What can you influence by 5 p.m.?

• What do you ignore because it belongs in someone else’s sphere?

By preserving your focus for what you genuinely control, you reduce mental scatter, avoid performance drag, and stay sharper when decisions really matter.

✅ Try This: Draw three concentric circles on a notepad:

• Outer circle: “Concern” (everything you care about)

• Middle circle: “Influence” (what you can shape)

• Inner circle: “Control” (your direct actions, responses)

Pick one item in the outer circle that keeps consuming your energy and move it outward: Decide not to think about it for the next 24 hours unless it moves into “Influence” or “Control.”

Learn more about The Spheres of Control and how to better filter your focus.

🎯 Pro Tip from the Guide: You’re not the CEO of the global market—so stop acting like it. Treat your calendar like a terrain map:

• invest 70 % of your time in your “inner sphere” (plans, direct actions, daily rhythms),

• 20 % in “influence” zones (team alignment, process improvements, delegation),

• and only 10 % (at most) in “concern” areas (industry chatter, external validation, what-ifs).

That allocation preserves your bandwidth for high‐leverage work. And for the 10% of “concern” areas that you ruminate on?

Schedule time to worry on purpose: Worry Windows.

Instead of letting anxious thoughts run the show 24/7, you give them a designated time slot, say, 15–30 minutes a day, to unleash all the fears, doubts, and worst-case scenarios. Once the clock runs out, you get back to business.

But does it actually work? The answer is a resounding yes. Learn more about Worry Windows.

📊 Wellness Stat of the Week: 41 % of employees globally report “high levels” of stress on any given day, with poor workplace management practices amplifying the risk. Gallup 2024 State of the Global Workplace.

If you’re under pressure, ask yourself: are you leading what you can control—or just responding to what you can’t? Read more on Workplace Insight.

✍️ Script for Boundaries:

“I appreciate the urgency here—however, the best way we can support this initiative is by focusing on the deliverable aligned with our strategy, rather than taking on extraneous requests. Let’s clarify scope together and delegate the rest.”

📣 Gut Check: What’s one concern you’re holding that doesn’t belong in your “Control” or “Influence” circle?

• Sit with this question for a few minutes

• Think about why this concern has a chokehold on you

• What small step can you do to create distance, peace, or release this concern?

📈 The Burnout Approval Matrix: Focus What You Can Control — A grid to highlight what amplifies clarity vs. what erodes it.

Want more support?

• Book your free 20-min burnout consult here

• Download your full Burnout Recovery Roadmap Guide

• Forward this to a friend who needs it

See you next Tuesday.
– Michelle

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