Freelancers & the Circles of Influence

Freelancers & the Circles of Influence 

(no, this is not a fantasy movie title!)

Your mental health is the "engine" of your business; if the engine burns out, the business stops. The framework below is a psychological boundary that protects your peace of mind.


Circle of Control (Your Inner Peace)

These are the only things you are responsible for. Focusing here lowers anxiety because these actions are 100% "doable."

Mental Health Application: Your morning routine, how you speak to yourself after a mistake, setting a "log-off" time, and choosing to take a walk when your brain feels foggy.

The Vibe: “I can’t control the world, but I can control my environment and my response.”

Circle of Influence (Your Professional Ripples)

You can put energy into these, but you must detach your *identity* from the result for the sake of your sanity.

Mental Health Application: Communicating your boundaries to a client, asking for a testimonial, and showing up authentically in your network. You influence how people perceive you, but you don't own their opinion.

The Vibe: “I will show up fully, and understand that my value is not related to how it's received.”


Circle of Concern (The Noise)

This is where "Comparisonitis" and "Future-Tripping" live. It’s the biggest drain on your mental battery.

Mental Health Application: Worrying about a potential recession, comparing your Day 1 to someone else’s Year 10, or stressing over a client who hasn't emailed back yet.

The Vibe: “This is outside my power. I choose not to give it my limited emotional energy.”



Support for the Low Battery Brain:
Whenever you feel that "freelance panic" (the what-if-it-all-fails feeling), draw these three circles. Move everything from the outer circle into the bin, and pick one tiny thing in the center circle to do right now. Action is the fastest cure for anxiety!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is that train of thought really serving you?

Image
  You vs those Thought Distortions! Let's face it, your brain feels like a 24/7 startup that never stops pitching you ideas about who you are, what you're doing, and how you could be improving things... some are valid, but sometimes they are straight-up lies. Depending on the circles you move in, you'd have heard about cognitive distortions . In professional terms, these are irrational thought patterns that trick you into believing things about you and/or your work that aren't actually true. If you don't catch them, they won't just ruin your mood; they’ll kill your productivity, burn you out, and make you want to quit before you’ve even started the day.          Here is the breakdown of how this hits your life, sometimes without you even realising it: 1. The "Success or  Total Trash" Trap (All-or-Nothing Thinking) You finish a project, but there’s one tiny bug or management asks for a revision. Your brain goes: "This project is a failure, and I...
Read more

The Four-Sided Reset: Using Box Breathing to Ground Your Nervous System

Image
  When the "low battery" light starts flashing, our instinct is usually to push through. We try to think our way out of stress, but when the nervous system is red-lining, more thinking is usually like adding more tabs to a browser that’s already frozen. If you're stressed, anxious, or overwhelmed and you need to ground yourself quickly without leaving your seat, you have to stop talking to your brain and start talking to your body (more accurately, your nervous system). One of the most effective, fact-based tools for this is Box Breathing (also known as Square Breathing). What is it? Box breathing is a rhythmic breathing technique used by everyone from high-performance athletes to those who face combat and still need to make decisions (or regulate their physical states) under pressure. It’s designed to shift your body out of "fight or flight" mode and back into a state of "rest and digest" so that you can continue functioning as fully as you can in t...
Read more