One of the universal challenges of human life is that so much is out of our control. The world is a complex and often unpredictable place, and every one of us will face hardships at one point or another. Failure, disappointment, and injustice are inevitable. And it doesn’t matter how privileged or lucky a person is. Life will be difficult at one point or another for all of us.

While much is out of our control, this reality coexists with an extraordinary capacity to exert influence over our environment, our minds, and our future. The word that best describes this idea is agency.

Throughout my writing, I’ll propose several guiding principles. These aren’t rigid rules; rather they are guidelines to be applied flexibly to the challenges of life in the modern world. In this post I’d like to lay out the framework for The Agency Principle, which I introduced in my previous post about values.

This is an idea I’ve been thinking about for a few years, and it’s far from fully formed. Nonetheless, here’s my working definition: Human beings have innate capacities for developing a sense of control in their lives, experiencing growth and change, and treating themselves with compassion.

I’ll expand upon three interlocking and overlapping components of this idea:

• An internal locus of control as a counterweight to life’s unwanted circumstances.
• A growth mindset as a catalyst for making difficult but important personal changes.
• Self-compassion as a critical center of gravity to counteract the human mind’s tendencies toward self-pity and overly harsh self-criticism.

These are long-standing and well researched concepts. I’ll present my take on each of them and attempt to tie them together into a useful framework for handling life’s challenges.

I’d also like to offer an alternative to some of the common narratives in the modern self-help world. Much of the popular self-improvement content in recent years has trended toward helplessness and victimhood at one extreme and unrealistic standards and expectations at the other. I hope to present a more flexible, realistic, and useful middle ground.

I’ll refer to the three components of agency as The Counterweight, The Catalyst, and The Center (because who doesn’t like alliteration?). In this post, I’ll introduce a way to apply an internal locus of control as an effectivecounterweight to the hardships of life. I’ll delve into the other two components and how all three can be integrated in future posts.

Origins

Locus of control is an idea developed by the psychologist Julian B. Rotter. This refers to how much perceived control a person has over their life. Someone with an internal locus of control believes they can exert influence over the circumstances in life. Conversely, a person with an external locus of control believes they are at the mercy of the world and other people.

People generally don’t fit neatly into one of those two categories. Any individual is likely to fall somewhere between those two extremes. Furthermore, someone may have more of an internal locus of control in certain contexts and an external locus of control in others. These differences are influenced by a person’s genetics, life experiences, and environment.

Research has suggested that there are benefits to an internal locus of control. This makes intuitive sense; feeling a sense of control over one’s life is something most people strive for. But putting that into practice can be tricky and complicated.

Radical Acceptance Is a Necessary Ingredient

No matter how much control you believe you have, you will eventually run into the wall of objective reality. Sometimes you genuinely can’t change your circumstances. This means the idea of an internal locus of control needs to be broadened.

The Serenity Prayer, a longtime staple of Alcoholics Anonymous, invokes the imperative to “accept the things I cannot change.” This is an empowering message, and one that can be applied well beyond alcohol-related problems. It is a form of radical acceptance toward what can’t be changed.

This kind of acceptance is very different from giving up. It is an active process, because it involves choosing how you interpret your difficult circumstances. Radical acceptance therefore fits within the idea of an internal locus of control, and the concept of agency more generally.

A healthy sense of acceptance also helps guard against unrealistic beliefs about being able to control everything in life. Self-compassion (the third component of the agency principle) comes into play here. Put a pin in that for now.

Taking Action

Self-empowerment is more than just an intellectual exercise, which brings us to the other half of an effective counterweight: taking action. Thankfully, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)  and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT, pronounced “act”) offer many accessible ways to refocus your attention and efforts toward what you can control (as well as skills for developing radical acceptance).

A central tenet of CBT is identifying your underlying beliefs about yourself, others, and the world around you. These beliefs represent a kind of operating system for navigating life. They can be helpful, detrimental, or somewhere in between.

Beliefs about your ability to pursue your goals, make changes, and improve your life have a significant influence on the actions you do or don’t take. CBT and ACT offer a multitude of helpful tools to identify and deemphasize beliefs that reinforce a sense of helplessness. Newer, more helpful beliefs about self-empowerment and personal efficacy can then be cultivated and acted upon.

I’ll describe many of these tools in future posts, but for now it’s important to understand that these beliefs are not set in stone; they are malleable and can be changed. A growth mindset (the second component of the agency principle) helps to facilitate this kind of belief change. More on that later.

Changing unhelpful beliefs isn’t a quick fix or a one-time deal. It’s a process of orienting your mind toward empowerment, and something that you’ll need to come back to when your thoughts inevitably drift toward helplessness and victimhood (or unrealistic expectations that you can alter circumstances that can’t be changed). And it’s critical if you want to gain a healthy sense of control in your life.

An internal locus of control – through a combination of acceptance and action – thus provides a powerful counterweight to the difficulties life throws at you.

Values Are an Effective Counterweight

As I wrote previously, values are within your control. These are qualities that represent the kind of person you want to be and the way that you want to treat yourself, others, and the world around you. When it feels like everything is going wrong around you, you can still choose how you want to respond.

That might mean prioritizing patience, courage, forgiveness, gratitude, or perseverance. Those are just a few examples, but the key is that no matter what is happening around you, you can exercise a degree of control by choosing the way you respond.

Focusing on values supports both acceptance and action. And it’s something that is always available to you, which is inherently empowering.

Your Phone Is Designed to Undermine Control

If you’ve ever looked down to find that your hand is swiping through your phone without your realizing it, opened TikTok and then wondered where the next two hours went, or generally felt powerless to resist using your phone, there’s a reason for that. The devices and platforms most of us use every day are endlessly competing for our attention. This has resulted in an arms race that prioritizes keeping eyeballs on a screen even when it’s detrimental for a person to do so.

Companies competing for consumers’ attention is nothing new. However, the effectiveness of modern technology to capture attention and modify behavior is unprecedented. TikTok really is that addictive. Instagram and Snapchat really do exploit many of our innate psychological vulnerabilities. Modern video games and phone-based games operate in much the same way.

Let’s return to the first part of The Agency Principle: Human beings have innate capacities for developing a sense of control in their lives. That’s true, but we also have our limitations, and modern technology is uniquely designed to take advantage of those limitations. Consequently, immersion in the digital world means giving up a portion of your control to devices and platforms.

The relationship between technology and human agency is a big one, and it will be a recurring theme throughout my writing. For now, it’s worthwhile to simply consider the ways in which the devices and platforms you use might be undermining your ability to feel like you’re in control. Being mindful of the degree to which any device or platform thwarts your sense of control can help you be more selective about what you use and how you use it.

How I Have Developed an Effective Counterweight

As I’ve written about previously, health issues have profoundly impacted my life over the last 11 years. Cultivating an internal locus of control has been invaluable as I’ve experienced mounting limitations and physical pain.

When this all started in my mid-twenties, I didn’t think I could deal with any of it.  My default beliefs about my ability to accept and/or overcome difficult circumstances naturally skew toward a more external locus of control. Accepting my circumstances and taking action to improve what I could weren’t possible until I changed those unhelpful beliefs.

These new ways of thinking have helped me to accept the many limitations that have piled up for me. I still experience plenty of sadness, frustration, anger, and a sense of loss for the things I can no longer do. There’s no good way to get rid of those feelings, and accepting my circumstances also means accepting the painful emotions that go along with them.

But this kind of acceptance is powerful, because it frees me from the struggle of trying to change the unchangeable. Furthermore, it allows me to redirect my attention toward the actions I can take to improve my life. I’ve discovered alternative ways to do things, pursued new outlets, accepted assistance from others, made helpful lifestyle changes, and sought out medical treatments that have benefited me. And no matter what, I can always act on my values.

I’ve applied this well beyond my health issues. Just like anyone else, I’ve experienced interpersonal problems, toxic work environments, painful breakups, and plenty of other challenges big and small. Developing an effective counterweight to these external forces has helped me to accept what I can’t change about them, take action to change what I can, and step back to see my role in each of them.

One of the most important ways I’ve taken control is significantly scaling back the role of modern technology in my life. I don’t use social media, I don’t own a smartwatch, I spend long periods away from my phone, and intermittent notifications and alerts simply are not a part of my daily experience.

My iPhone is an incredible supercomputer that makes many parts of my life easier, especially when it comes to overcoming my physical limitations. But that doesn’t mean I have to accept the norm of immersion in the digital world. By using modern technology as a useful tool and rejecting the detrimental effects of constant connectivity, I maintain a level of control that truly feels like a superpower in the modern world.

None of this is to say that I always feel like I’m in control. My mind inevitably drifts toward feeling like a helpless victim or believing I can change circumstances beyond what is possible.

But that’s okay, because developing a healthy sense of control is an ongoing process, not a destination. When I notice my mind going in either of those directions, I come back to my counterweight by taking action to solve my problems and/or accepting what I can’t change.

That’s the first stop in our initial exploration of human agency. The Counterweight focuses on external problems. Next up: The Catalyst, which is more internally focused and applies the idea of a growth mindset to the age-old challenge of personal development and change.

Reading Recommendations

At the end of many of my posts, I’ll recommend books related to the topic at hand. A regular reading habit is a foundational modern superpower, and it will give you the chance to explore and deepen your understanding of many of these topics. If reading books seems unrealistic, fret not. I’ll discuss ways to overcome the barriers to a reading habit in future writing.

The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Stolen Focus by Johann Hari

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl