You Can't Control AI — But You Can Control This
Elise O'Shea·1,100 words · 5 min read
Let's not pretend the anxiety isn't real. The headlines are relentless. The layoff stories hit close to home. And somewhere beneath the noise, a quiet dread has taken up residence — a feeling that the world is accelerating away from you, and there's nothing you can do but watch.
I hear this in nearly every client session lately. A graphic designer wondering if her portfolio still matters. A mid-level manager watching his team's workload get absorbed by automation tools. A writer who used to feel proud of his craft, now second-guessing every sentence. The anxiety is valid. The grief is real. And the last thing you need is someone telling you to "just embrace the change."
So let's not start there. Let's start with something more honest — and more useful.
The Psychology of Feeling Out of Control
In the 1960s, psychologist Julian Rotter introduced a concept that remains one of the most quietly powerful ideas in behavioral science: the locus of control. In simple terms, it describes where you believe control over your life actually lives.
People with a strong external locus of control feel that life happens to them — that outcomes are determined by forces beyond their reach: the economy, other people, luck, or in our current moment, technology. People with a strong internal locus of control feel that while they can't determine every outcome, they have genuine agency over their responses, their choices, and their trajectory.
Neither is entirely true. And neither is an innate personality trait. The good news: your locus of control is something you can cultivate.
The goal isn't blind optimism. It's the quiet, grounded recognition that even in an uncertain world, you are not without power.
Two Circles That Will Change How You See This Moment
Stephen Covey built on Rotter's framework with a deceptively simple model: the Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence. It's worth spending real time here, because most of our AI anxiety lives entirely in the wrong circle.
Circle of Concern
Which jobs AI will eliminate
How fast the technology is advancing
What companies choose to automate
Economic disruption timelines
What competitors are doing
Algorithmic decisions made about you
Circle of Influence
The skills you choose to deepen
How you show up for clients & colleagues
The relationships you invest in
Your daily energy and mental state
The narrative you build about yourself
How much news you consume each day
When your mental energy pours into the Circle of Concern — the vast, swirling territory of things you cannot change — anxiety compounds. It's not a character flaw. It's a predictable neurological response to perceived threat without a corresponding outlet for action.
The shift happens when you begin, deliberately and repeatedly, redirecting your attention to the Circle of Influence. This is not about denial. It's about strategic focus. Highly resilient people aren't people who experience less uncertainty — they're people who've learned to invest their finite energy where it can actually do something.
What This Looks Like In Practice
Three grounding exercises to begin this week
The Two-Column Journal - Each morning, draw a line down the center of a page. On the left, write everything you're worried about AI doing. On the right, write one small, concrete action you can take today within your actual sphere of influence. Notice how quickly the right column empties the dread from the left.
The "Controllable" Audit - When a fear surfaces — "AI is going to take my job" — pause and ask: is this in my Circle of Concern or my Circle of Influence? If it's concern, acknowledge it with compassion, then consciously release it. If it's influence, name one action. This single habit rewires your default anxiety response over time.
A Weekly "Agency Inventory" - At the end of each week, list five things you chose, initiated, or influenced. They don't need to be monumental. Chose to call a mentor. Finished that online course. Set a boundary with your screen time. Read something that expanded your thinking. This practice builds the neurological architecture of agency — the felt sense that you are not passive in your own story.
The Deeper Truth About Control
Here's what the research on locus of control consistently shows: people who operate from a more internal orientation don't just feel better — they perform better under uncertainty. They're more likely to take meaningful action, maintain their health habits, preserve quality relationships, and adapt effectively to change. Not because they're immune to fear, but because they've built the muscle of agency until it becomes the default gear.
The AI revolution is genuinely disruptive. Some roles will change. Some industries will transform. These are not things you can stop. But the version of you that emerges from this period — the one who stayed curious, who deepened their human expertise, who tended their relationships and their peace of mind — that version is entirely within your authorship.
You are not a passive recipient of a technological future being built without you. You are a person with a sphere of influence, a set of irreplaceable capacities, and the ability to choose, right now, where your energy goes.
That is no small thing. That is everything.
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom."
— Viktor Frankl
Ready to go deeper?
If you're navigating career anxiety or a sense of lost direction in this fast-changing world, a coaching session with Soulful Strides can help you rebuild from the inside out.
