How to Focus on What You Can Control When Family Relationships Are Hard

Episode 218: How to Focus on What You Can Control When Family Relationships Are Hard

When a relationship is strained, it’s so tempting to think: If I say it the right way… if I do enough… if I stay kind enough… then they’ll finally respond the way I need them to. But the truth is, you can’t control what someone else thinks, feels, or does. What you can control is how you show up, and that’s where change begins.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How Stephen R. Covey’s “Circles” framework helps you sort what you’re worried about (concern) from what you can impact (influence) and what you can actually choose (control).
• The difference between control and influence and why confusing the two often leads to frustration, resentment, and burnout.
• Why blame, of yourself or others, quietly steals your power and what to do instead when you feel stuck.
• What “your inputs” really are in a struggling relationship and how to check whether you’re expecting something different than what you’re planting.
• A simple journaling question to help you reclaim steadiness and integrity: “Who am I being in the relationship, and how is that in my control?”

When you focus on your circle of control, your thoughts, feelings, actions, and relational inputs, you stop chasing the impossible job of managing someone else’s inner world. You may not be able to control outcomes, but you can keep planting what aligns with who you want to be. Over time, that steadiness changes you, and it often shifts the relationship more than force ever could.

 Tina Gosney is the Family Conflict Coach. She works with parents who have families in conflict to help them become the grounded, confident leaders their family needs. 
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If you want support putting what you’re learning into practice, come join The Connection Community in Bridge to Connection. You’ll get step-by-step relationship lessons, practical tools to calm anxiety and reduce conflict, and live monthly coaching calls to help you stay steady and build real connection with your child—especially when things feel tense. Learn more and join at https://www.courageous-connections.com/bridge-to-connection3

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 Tina is certified in family relationships and a trauma informed coach. 
Visit tinagosney.com for more information on coaching services.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Coaching Your Family Relationships podcast. I am your host, Tina Gosni, an advanced family relationship coach. This is where we talk about difficult family issues and how to move through them. I'm so glad you're here with me now. Let's get started. I have reached the ripe age of needing to see a doctor to help me with some health issues. I wish actually that I had paid attention to this at an earlier age because I think it would have been so helpful for me 20 years ago. But I've reached an age where I'm very humbled by not being able to control as many things as I thought with my own body. And very humbled by a recognition that my body is a very complex system of biology, chemistry, a lot of different things. And I am not a scientist, so I won't go any further into that. Actually, didn't do very well in biology in high school or college. So I'm not going to even try to tackle any more of that side of this, but I'm going to leave it to the people who do a really great job on their podcasts of addressing all those health issues. But I have come to realize that there are many things going on inside my own body that I don't have a lot of control over. I'm subject to a lot of things like age, environmental influences, genetics, basically, you know, being a human being, living in a human body in a world that is flawed and that is not perfect. And I've tried to really get really clear about what are the things that I can control. And I've discovered, you know, I can control my inputs. I can control how I think about my body, how I feel about my body, and what I do with my body. When I first began seeing this doctor that I've been working with, it's been a good two and a half years. He gave me five non-negotiables. And actually, he gives everybody these same five non-negotiables. And then from there, he kind of branches off into see what you specifically need. But I thought it was really interesting that one of these five non-negotiables that he gave me was that I need to talk kindly to myself and my body every single day. Isn't that interesting? Why would he say and put that on a list of non-negotiables that I needed to talk kindly to myself? And he tells everybody this. It wasn't just me. He tells everyone this is a non-negotiable. What does talking kindly to yourself produce? It produces good feelings about yourself. Feelings drive actions. Thoughts and feelings feed off of each other to produce actions. Actions can begin to change the thoughts and the feelings that I'm having. It's kind of a spiraling up. You know, we have some positive thoughts going on, which creates positive feelings that drives different actions. And then as why I get some more evidence that I can feel better when I do certain things, that kind of feeds on itself into having more positive thoughts and feelings and actions, and it spirals in a way that is a positive way. And I give myself more evidence that I want what I want to achieve is possible. So how I treat my body is in my control. What I put into my body in the form of fuel and food, if I exercise or not that day, how much I move, whether I stretch, how much I sleep, how much water I drink, all of those things are in my control. But even with those inputs, there are still things that my body does that I don't get to say with 100% accuracy that I can control. There are things that my body does that I don't have control over. So how does this reply to relationships and why am I talking about my health journey in the last couple of years? Because there are all things in our relationships, all of us have things that we want to control. We want to know that if I do A, B, C, then I'm gonna get X, Y, Z. Like if I just do these things, then I'm gonna get a result that I want. Well, that might look like, okay, if I talk kindly, if I show up and support them, if I treat them nicely, if I do these things, then this person is going to love me. They're going to respect me, they're going to think good thoughts about me, they're going to want to be around me, they're going to treat me the way that I want to be treated. And I could go on and on and on. But we actually don't get to control the way that somebody else thinks, feels, or does in regard to us. We really want to be able to. And lots of times we think that we can, but when we finally realize, oh, I did all those things and I didn't get that. That was not in my control. It can be very humbling. It can also be very discouraging. And for some people, it's very anger-producing. So I want to go to the question what is in my control? In my relationships, what is in my control? And to do this, let's look at Stephen R. Covey's model that he calls the circles of influence. So I want you to picture three circles, one inside another. The biggest circle is called the circle of concern. Now think about all the things that you are concerned about. Maybe you're concerned about the election, about the economy, about the housing market, about the future of the planet, about what's going on on the other side of the world. There are a lot of things that we have concerns about. How much control do you have over those things? For me, I have very, very little, very, very, very little control over any of those things. I even have very little influence over any of those things. So let's just leave that big giant circle of concern. Because there's a lot of things in that circle that we can't do anything about, but take up a lot of our brain power and a lot of our emotional energy. Inside that circle, we find something called the circle of influence. This is a smaller circle. There are less things in this circle, but these are things that I can't control directly, but I can't influence them. For example, in this circle, I'm going to include some things like the local election. And I also recently joined the board of a nonprofit organization in my community called Connection is the Cure, and we help people in our local community find resources for addiction and suicide. I have some influence there. There's a little bit of influence I have that in that place. But I'm also going to include things like the way someone thinks of me. Do I have control over the way someone thinks of me? No. But I have influence in that. I have influence over whether someone wants to be in a relationship or with me or not. But I don't, I can't control that, but I can influence it by different things, which we'll get into in just a minute. I have also some influence in my own health. I don't always get to control the outcome of my actions, but I can influence the health of my body. You know, in this circle, this circle of influence, we're going to contribute to the result in a meaningful way. We don't always have direct control on the results, but we have influence on those results. So remember, in this relationship, regards to relationship with the circle of influence, I don't get to control someone else's thoughts, feelings, or actions, but I certainly have influence in them by what then I put in my circle of control. So the circle of control we find inside the circle of influence, it's even smaller than the circle of influence. These are the things that I directly affect with what I do that I have control over. For example, with my health, I can control whether or not I exercise that day. I control how much water I drink, what kind of vitamins and supplements I take, what food or fuel I decide to put in my body, all of those things I do have control over. I don't have control over what my body sometimes does with them, but I have control over my inputs. In a relationship, I have control over myself, what I do, especially when I'm facing something that's difficult, like someone else treating me in a way that I don't like. I have control over what I do with that situation. And I get to control the way I show up in a relationship, no matter what someone else is doing or not doing. Now, we as a society have taught our children differently. And if you have thought differently, it makes perfect sense because you were probably taught this way as a child. But then there's another part of us that might be thinking, well, of course, I don't get to control somebody else's thoughts, feelings, and actions. There's really this kind of this gray area that we live in where we say one thing, like, of course, that that would be ridiculous if I thought I could control somebody else's thoughts and feelings. Of course, I can't control that. But then we act in a way that's different. Let me give you a couple examples. Just from a typical example of if you had a small child and some of the things that you might say to them. Uh, you know, little Johnny's on a play date and he takes a toy away from someone and you say, Hey, Johnny, you hurt his feelings. You need to give that back to him. Look how sad he is. You made him so sad. How many times did you do that? Or what about when you're trying to get your kids to eat healthier and you say, Hey, if you eat your broccoli, you're gonna make mommy so happy. I will be so happy to see you eat your vegetables. We're teaching little Johnny that he can control other people's feelings. And on the flip side, if he can control other people's feelings, he's gonna also believe that other people get to control his feelings. And we get this really mixed up because none of that is true. None of that is in our control, but we do have influence there. And what happens when we mix up the circle of influence and the circle of control? When we start getting these, these lines get confused, we start blaming ourselves or other people. We start blaming ourselves for how someone else thinks, how someone else feels, and we start letting ourselves blame them for how we are thinking and feeling. Just because things are not going the way that we want them to, we start to look outside of ourselves for something or someone to blame. And then sometimes we internalize that same blame ourselves. But if we assign blame to either ourselves or to someone else, it just becomes something then that we don't have control over. We say, this is just the way things are. I don't have any control over this person. What in what about instead if we stopped looking for someone to blame and we just made the lines a little bit more clear? What if we start looking at what is in my control? Was I thinking something was in my control and it wasn't? Did I think that I had control over something that I didn't? What's in your control? Remember what you think, what you feel, and what you do, that is in your control. What somebody else thinks, feels, or does is not in your control. It's in your circle of influence. Think about this. Some people will use um this line that I've heard many times. They say, Oh, well, I can't help it if you're offended. That's your problem. It's your problem if you're offended. And then they use that um, that thought that they've had, they've heard from people to say, I get to show up however I want. I get to say, do, think, anything that I want. And it's your responsibility to deal with the aftermath of the garbage that I dump at your feet. That is terrible because you have influence on another person, don't you? Is that really the way that you want to influence someone? So where you put your attention and your focus really matters. The attention and focus, when you use it to look at what kind of inputs you're giving to a relationship, you get really clear about yourself, about where the lines are of control, the line between control and influence. And your control is in what you think, feel, and do. Your influence is in what you think, feel, and do about another person. And when your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions align with who you are working to become, then you are acting with integrity. You are seeing where is my line? Where is the line of what I can control and what I influence? And even when you see that line, you're still going to make mistakes because you're a human being and humans make mistakes, and we need to forgive ourselves when we do. I want you to think to think about sometimes you're gonna get out of your, even out of the circle of influence and control, and you're gonna go to concern. And you're gonna think that you can control a lot of things out in the world, and you're just confused about that. You're gonna forget that you don't control what other people think, especially about you. That's in your circle of influence. And then something's gonna happen and you're gonna remember, oh, yeah, I don't get to control what they think, but I can influence what they think. And then sometimes you're gonna get mixed up about how you have that influence. And you're gonna maybe try to influence them in a way that to them seems kind of controlling and maybe manipulative, even when you don't mean to. But you're still gonna do it because you're just figuring it out. You're going to make a lot of mistakes, especially when you're trying to change the way that you've been showing up. And it feels all really awkward and confusing. You have to think through everything and you're not sure what to do and what not to do, and you're going to fail a lot. And that's normal. So forgive yourself and ask for forgiveness from others when you have affected them and influence them in a way that you didn't want to. And then just keep trying because it does get easier. The more you get really clear about your inputs and what you want to be putting into your circle of control, and then how you want to influence others, the more you do it with integrity, the easier it will get. Trying and failing, trying and succeeding, and then trying and failing, and then repeating that all over again. Because, you know, if we didn't normalize that this is how change happens, we start to think this is too hard. Nothing works, nothing is changing. So why do I keep giving in all this effort? That is such a natural place for us to go when we're not seeing and not looking at what we should be looking at. But there's an author that I really love. He's the author of Atomic Habits. His name is James Clear. And he says in his book, he said, every action you take is a vote for the person you're becoming. You don't have to get a unanimous vote to win. We just need to have a majority. So think about over time, you want a majority. You might not get the majority at first, but over time, as you keep trying to figure out where is my control, where is my influence, and you keep making mistakes and getting picking yourself up and trying again, making repairs where you need to, your votes are going to be on the majority side of who you are working to become. If you have a relationship that is suffering, look at your inputs. That is what is in your control. What are you contributing to the relationship? If you plant corn seeds, you're not going to harvest wheat. But if you plant wheat seeds, there are still things that aren't in your control. Like what about the weather? You don't get to control whether you harvest a great wheat crop crop or not. But if you want wheat, even if the storm came and destroyed all of your crops, you get to plant again. You get to start again. So are you expecting something different than what you're giving? Are you in it for the long haul? Or are you trying to force something to happen before it's really ready to happen? Here's a journaling question for you. Who am I being in the relationship? And how is that in my control? Explore that. Listen to this podcast again. Explore that and journal it through your journaling. I want you to thank you for being here with me today. Now, if you want more help with your family relationships, I mean you should sign up to receive help in your inbox each week. I send out bite-sized small things that you can do every week in just a few minutes. And I would love to add you to the list of the people that receive that help every week. The link is in the show notes. I look forward to seeing your sign up, and I look forward to visiting with you on this podcast next week!