Personal Agency; What It Is & How To Get More

Our Capacity for Choosing

Image by Krystle Hunter from Unsplash

The message across time, geography and cultures on CHOOSING is clear — our circumstances and personal world are largely determined by our choices.

By our teen years, most of us have some degree of control over what we do, eat, drink, what we wear, the media we consume, and how we speak and present ourselves. Beyond early years and initial circumstances, we largely design and define our lives via the choices we make.

We have the incredible capacity to employ reason, and to engage in conditional thinking when making choices. Those choices enable us to navigate people, to navigate situations, to see past hardships, and to steer our present and future. We make some choices ACTIVELY, and we make other choices by simply going along with what others have decided. Even when we choose not to choose, we are making a choice.

We can choose to be eager, frustrated, interested, polite, indifferent, curious, ho-hum, or enthusiastic. We can choose to study, to binge Netflix, to show up, work out, or to coast and accept what happens to come our way.

We make choices all day, every day and our choices carry weight - great weight.

The question is, can we more consistently make positive choices that work for us, serve us, and at the same time serve greater good and others? The answer lies in building our sense of agency and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy and personal agency are key to making consistent, empowering choices that align with our priorities. Self-efficacy and personal agency are key to positively shaping our lives.

6 Steps to Greater Personal Agency

Our belief in our ability to meet challenges and our claim to our own personal agency are key to making empowering choices. Are we spectators or are we in the arena? Are we waiting for others to do something or are we acting and influencing the way our lives evolve? Personal agency is an individual’s capacity to choose, to act, and to make things happen. While we all have agency, people acknowledge and use personal agency in varying degrees. Personal agency is about taking responsibility for who we are, how we respond, and how we frame and shape experiences. A person with less agency rejects responsibility and believes themselves to be upended by people, luck and events outside of themselves. A person with strong personal agency perceives that they are a protagonist that directs and influences their attitude, actions, and life circumstances. Personal agency is tied to one’s sense of self-efficacy, our belief in our own self-worth and ability to complete tasks and meet challenges. Effective steps toward increasing personal agency and self-efficacy include:

1. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF: Personal agency is about taking responsibility for cultivating positive mindset, and for your choices, actions, and words. Owning our actions, words, and positive mindset empowers, helps us see challenges as opportunities, and helps us advocate for ourselves when it is time to do so.

2. CONTROL STIMULI: Personal Agency begins with FOCUS, and where focus goes, energy flows. Distraction effects our peace and capacity to think deeply. Ongoing distraction, and what we see, hear, and experience day after day MATTERS. Be particular about the media and messaging you consume.

3. BE SELECTIVE: We move in the direction of the company we keep. What to do? To the extent possible, surround yourself with individuals who are kind, who value accomplishment, and who are more accomplished in ways than you are. Spend time with people who have high expectations of themselves, of life and the world, and who believe in you.

4. PRIORITIZE FITNESS: Invest, Invest, Invest in yourself by breaking a sweat and exerting yourself on a regular basis. The benefits of rigorous exercise for our mental, emotional, social, and physical health can’t be denied. Take the first step no matter how small, and work up to moving to the point of exertion multiple days every week. BEGIN! Today.

5. FRAME & POSITION: Framing and positioning yourself in particular ways is paramount. Believe in your own potential to progress and grow. Decide that you are a grateful, humble, lifelong learner and force for good, and position yourself that way. Enjoy the process of discovery, and commit to gratitude, caring, and benevolent curiosity about the world and everyone others.

6. DECIDE & ACT: Waiting until you have every morsel of information about something before making a decision is a mistake. Take a limited amount of time to gather facts, and to consider options and risk. Then with your primary objective at top of mind, decide and act. Leave procrastination and worry behind and don’t wait for 100% assurance or all possible facts. You don’t need either to make a reasoned, sound decision. Pull the lever and move on.

Image by Anastasia Nelen from Unsplash

The power that lies in the choices we make and the mindset we cultivate have been recognized since antiquity. This power continues to be relevant, critical, and recognized in our personal lives and professional lives today. 

Building self-efficacy, acknowledging our capacity to think and reason, and claiming our personal agency are key to designing and defining our lives, and are key to artful choosing.