The erosion of agency is a serious, widespread problem. Fortunately, we all have powerful adaptive abilities at our disposal. We have developed seven targeted principles for you to follow to increase your level of agency and keep it at a healthy level. You will find a range of simple, effective practices embedded in each principle:
• Control Stimuli. Cutting back the number of distractions in your immediate environment increases your ability to choose where your attention goes, improves your level of concentration, bolsters creative thinking, and makes you less susceptible to impulsive acts and poorly thought-through decisions.
• Associate Selectively. Surrounding yourself with healthy, empathetic, open-minded, candid, and supportive people will boost your mood, elevate your motivation, and improve your overall health and well-being.
• Move. Focusing on movement, and on the nutrition and rest necessary to keep you active and in balance, increases mental and physical strength and stamina—essential building blocks to all body and mind functions.
• Position Yourself as a Learner. Actively questioning, listening, and learning as part of your daily routine gives you a deeper understanding of the world around you, enabling you to continuously expand your knowledge and capabilities.
• Manage Your Emotions and Beliefs. Cultivating greater self-awareness helps you to identify and bring order to strong feelings and beliefs that could misguide you, allowing you to navigate life with greater confidence.
• Check Your Intuition. Learning to access your intuition, and ensuring that you use it wisely rather than impulsively, provides valuable guidance as you make your way through challenges.
• Deliberate, Then Act. Using a defined deliberation process allows you to identify and weigh options in a contemplative, inclusive, rational way before making important decisions and positions you to take positive, clear, decisive actions.
We call the first three principles—Control Stimuli, Associate Selectively, and Move—the Behavioral Principles. These self-management principles are the easiest to learn and develop. They consist of practices that help free up the mind from negative influences and get you moving in the right direction.
We call the next four principles—Position Yourself as a Learner, Manage Your Emotions and Beliefs, Check Your Intuition, and Deliberate, Then Act—the Cognitive Principles. These are more challenging to learn and develop, as they require a shift in your awareness and a change in how you manage your thinking and emotions.
As you master the practices associated with the seven principles you will become more open to learning and better able to keep strong feelings and distorted beliefs from derailing your judgment. You will also be better able to tap your inner wisdom at moments when there’s no obvious answer sitting in front of you. And finally, you will start to put new ideas to work in your life.