On my terms: cultivating a sense of personal agency
“What, in this situation, can you control?”
That question comes up a lot in coaching. As a client tries to untangle something they feel unclear about which is complicated by lots of external factors: other people’s behaviour and choices, society at large, the weather, etc. There’s a common thread through all those different situations; there are some elements that are within our control, and others which are not.
Developing a mindset where we can take responsibility for the bits that are within our realm, and an ease or flow for those which are not, can make a massive difference to how we move through our days and how we tackle obstacles or problems that it’s natural to regularly encounter.
I’ve done this recently. As regular readers of the blog know, I have partial alopecia, which has been consistent for over a decade now. One patch appears, slowly regrows, another appears and so on. Only recently, it’s not been alopecia business as usual. For some unknown reason, it’s got a lot worse and currently I’m missing a lot of hair at the back and the sides. It’s sort of possible to hide, but only just and those baldy bits absolutely hate the cold weather. There’s no cure, none of the current available treatments (which have a fairly low success rate) are suitable for me, so it would be easy to sit back and just accept my fate.
Only I don’t feel OK doing that. It knocks my confidence and makes me feel helpless. So, with lack of anything else to go on, I’ve seriously improved my diet over the last few weeks. The healthiest thing I thought I could do is to eat 30+ plants a week. I’ve got a sheet of paper on the fridge and I log every veg, fruit, pulse, grain, herb and spice. I’ve hit over 40 a week in the past fortnight. Sometimes, it’s not a huge amount of each, but my microbiome is dancing with joy from all the variety! I’ve also cut back on wheat as I’ve an inkling that’ll help too.
Quite a bit of it is now regrowing at the back, although the fallout hasn’t slowed much yet. But making that big change in my diet has given me a vitally important thing: personal agency. Whether perceived or real, the control a sense of agency has given me, has done wonders for my confidence and ability to deal with the impact of a sudden increase in hair loss.
Taking my story as an example, a sense of agency is incredibly useful in lots of ways right now. As the Collin’s Dictionary announces the word of the year as Permacrisis (a word so new, Microsoft Word doesn’t recognise it), we need our own sense of individual agency more than ever. We need the feeling that our actions have an impact on our outcomes, even if that is small and external factors are having a bigger impact, as long as we feel we still have some control over our own lives, we can weather this ongoing storm.
Here are a few other ways to cultivate some personal agency:
- Choosing to move your body. We know it’s good for us, but it can feel like a chore. Finding a way to move your body that makes you feel good is key. Mine is yoga with the occasional kitchen disco. For you it might be hill walking, badminton, sneaking on the kids trampoline when no one is watching… you get the gist.
- Choosing when and how you go to sleep. Of course, this isn’t always possible, but if you do have the chance to enact some intentional agency over your bedtime, that is a powerful thing. Getting to sleep a little earlier is always good as not only will you feel better in the morning, you’re also more likely to stay healthier throughout your life. Having a calm, gently lit environment for bedtime works wonders too for impacting the quality of your sleep.
- Practice a little positive psychology and savour the good moments. They don’t need to be the happiest points of your life ever, just points of joy in your day. Taking the time to notice and be in the present and enjoy them makes a difference. One of mine is dipping the knife into a brand new jar of marmite… that always feels amazing!
- Also on the positive psychology front, practicing a little gratitude can help. It’s something I’m about to introduce to bedtime as I think it might help the increasingly grumpy-in-the-morning 11yo. 5 minutes of journalling focusing on things from your day (or week, month, year) you are grateful for. That sounds like an excellent way to regain a little control over my perspective of the day I've had and leave me in a good mindset for sleep.
