Paper One

In Mister Byron's class we spoke about the Balloon Analogy, and who or what is in control of our pressure. In Stephen Covey's book 7Habits of Highly Effective People he speaks of a very similar concept called the circle of influence. This circle of influence is basically an inventory about the things in life we have the ability to control and those things that are completely out of our control. The circle pertaining to things in life is called the circle of concern. The inner circle is referred to as the actual circle of influence.

This circle of influence is the area you want to stay in. When you think about the weather or the way people are treating you these are thing that you really have no control over and by worrying over them you are diminishing your circle of influence and enlarging your circle of concern. A bit different from the balloon which will burst due to the extra pressure that is created by external things the circle of influence gets basically squeezed into nothing. The meaning is exactly the same.

In class we were told things like our mind is the creator of our thoughts, and our essence has no self-esteem. These are statements that are trying to teach you to change your thinking from things that really we have no control over to the things that we do. He breaks these things down into three areas the first is problems involving our own behavior we talked about these things in class. Thoughts that we allow to control our daily lives other bad habits like not managing our time these are the kinds of things we do have control over and have the choice to change. The second is problems involving other's behavior. These things can some times be worked out but a lot of times will be considered an external influence that can not be controlled and could either squeeze you circle influence to a little dot or blow up your balloon. The third is situations that we can do nothing about such as our past or situational realities