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The Observatory
Exercise12 minEmotionalDiscipline

The circle of control

Sort a stressful situation into what you control, what you influence and what you can't control, and choose an action.

The path

How it works

  1. From the bookWrite
  2. Draw the circlesList
  3. Shift the energyWrite
  4. Act and let goWrite
  5. The week that passedWrite
Imagine you are sitting in a small sailboat in the middle of an endless sea. You can hoist the sails and steer toward a goal, or leave the sails down and drift with the currents. This is a picture of our relationship to …

Exercise in 5 steps, about 12 minutes. Doing it is part of Premium, which you try free for 7 days with no card. With Premium your answers are saved so you can pick up where you left off and look back at what you wrote.

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The evidence

Why does it work?

The distinction between what is up to us and what is not comes from the Stoic Epictetus; coping research shows that problem-focused coping fits best when something can be changed and emotion-focused coping when it can't (Folkman 1984). The circle exercise itself has not been tested in a study of its own.

Account, your first assessment with the hexagon and one new measurement every quarter are free. The rest is part of Premium: SEK 99 a month or SEK 699 a year, VAT included.

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