What’s In Your Control?

What’s In Your Control?

Put your energy where it can actually make a difference.

Anxiety tends to spend its energy on the things we can’t change, and leaves less for the things we can. This one-page circle of control worksheet helps you sort a worry into the right circle. That won’t make the worry disappear, but it shows you where your effort will actually help and what you can practice letting be.

What’s inside

• Three circles, with examples:In my control: how I prepare, what I say and do next, my breathing, asking for help, having a plan B.
• I can influence: how a moment unfolds, how others respond, how smoothly a plan goes.
• Out of my control: other people’s choices, surprises, weather, traffic.
• The anxiety trap: why trying to control the outer circle never feels finished, and how checking, reassurance-seeking, overplanning and replaying conversations bring brief relief but keep worry going.
• Sort it out: blank circles for sorting your own worries.
• What to do with each circle:In my control: act on one small thing.
• Can influence: do your part, then let the rest play out.
• Out of my control: name it as an outer-circle worry and practice letting it be there without solving it.
• A reframe: letting go of the outer circle isn’t giving up or not caring. It’s putting your energy where it can actually land.

Who it’s for

Kids, teens and adults with anxiety, overthinking, perfectionism or reassurance-seeking. It’s useful for therapists, school counselors, parents and teachers.

Ways to use it

• Sort a client’s current worries together in session.
• Use it as a quick reset before a test, appointment or big event.
• Help a family sort what parents can control versus what a child can.
• Send it home for practice when worries pile up at bedtime.

Why it’s different

It explains why control-seeking keeps anxiety going, names common safety behaviors without shame, and frames acceptance as trust in your own ability to handle surprises.

What you get

A one-page printable PDF, US Letter, available as an instant download. Single-clinician license included.

Pairs well with: Radical Acceptance, Anxiety & the Body, Understanding Panic