Spheres of Influence

As someone with a million ideas and projects on the go, I'm regularly risking decision fatigue.

And in nonprofit work, it’s easy to feel pulled in every direction by funders, community needs, policy shifts, and team dynamics. When your to-do list outpaces your capacity, and you're navigating systems far more complex than any one person or team, the overwhelm can be debilitating. 

The Spheres of Influence model can help you figure out where to focus energy, attention, and action, while avoiding the urge to give up.

Let’s break it down.

Control – What can you directly control right now?
Influence – Where can you affect change, even if you don’t have the final say?
Concern – What are you aware of, tracking, or feeling anxious about?
Let Go (for now) – What do you need to set down to conserve energy and focus?

At its best, this framework offers a grounding filter to navigate burnout, competing priorities, and systemic issues. But it’s not a call to shrink your circle of care. It's a way to move with intention.

Why This Matters

Burnout is often rooted in a lack of control: decisions being made elsewhere, unpredictable funding, or shifting demands with little warning. When people feel powerless but are still expected to deliver, they don’t just become stressed, they start to shut down.

Over time, this can erode morale, fracture trust in leadership, and make even the most committed staff question whether it’s time to leave.

The Spheres of Influence model supports critical reflection, informed decision-making, and shared language around what’s possible right now, and what might be possible in the future.

But here’s an important caveat: if we only act in our circle of control, we risk reinforcing the status quo. This isn’t a model for disengagement. It’s a compass for channeling energy wisely, especially in the face of injustice, limited capacity, or systemic harms.

Practical Applications for Individuals

Here’s how you might use this framework personally:

• Control: You decide how many meetings you book in one day. You block two hours a week for deep work and treat it as non-negotiable. You choose one cause that has the most meaning to you, and dive in. You pause mid-day and take a real lunch break.

• Influence: You advocate for more flexible timelines or inclusive hiring practices. You mentor a colleague. You contribute data or stories that influence decisions, even if you’re not the one making them.

• Concern: You’re aware that a provincial policy will impact your clients next year. You track conversations about sector trends. You feel uneasy about a funding shift but can’t act yet.

• Let Go (for now): You stop doomscrolling every news headline. You pause a project that’s lost momentum. You remind yourself, “I’m not the only one responsible for fixing this.”

None of these choices are simple, but they’re strategic. They help you direct energy toward what is possible, meaningful, and sustainable.

Practical Applications for Teams

Teams and organizations can use the same model for planning, strategy, and staff wellness.

• Control: What policies or practices do you have full authority over? Can you shorten your meetings? Adjust performance metrics? Change how you gather feedback?

• Influence: Where can you partner with others or shape the conversation? Think: co-advocating with sector allies, engaging funders in dialogue, offering feedback to a board or coalition.

• Concern: What external factors are worth tracking? Upcoming legislation, community tensions, economic shifts? These aren’t action items (yet) but they’re important to monitor.

• Let Go (for now): Where are you overreaching or over-functioning? What do you need to pause, delegate, or delay?

Using the Spheres of Influence as a standing agenda item in team meetings or retreats can build shared awareness of priorities and reduce the pressure to do everything, all at once.

A Note on Letting Go

“Letting go” does not mean ignoring harm, injustice, or oppression. That’s not what we’re advocating for here.

Letting go, in this model, is a strategy of discernment. It’s a way of saying: “I only have so much energy today. I will focus it where it counts.” That might mean resting your nervous system. Turning off notifications. Or choosing one campaign to support instead of five.

Sometimes letting go means trusting in the ability of another team, partner organization, or community leader to carry part of the load.

You’re not serving anyone by doing everything yourself. Over-functioning can be a trauma response in disguise, and a desire to protect others.

So letting go is not about apathy. It’s about managing your energy and refusing to burn out before the work is done.

Call to Action: Expand the Circle

Once your core needs are met (i.e., you’re not teetering on the edge of burnout and you have supports in place), it becomes possible to stretch outside your sphere of control.

When we have breathing room, we can move out of a reactive state and into an expansive space where we can be proactive and strategic.

Stretching into the spheres of influence and concern brings together people who advocate, organize, connect, and imagine better systems.

Yes, we work with constraints. But we also work with courage.

Let’s keep widening the circle.

Did you find this article helpful? Sign up for Leadership Learnings and get resources delivered straight to your inbox.