Mastering the Art of Focus: Influence vs Inevitability

by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

Accepting your real life is the way to changing your life.

This world is your world – but it won’t always bend to your will. Fires will burn, storms will rage, and sometimes life will slap you in the face just to remind you who’s really in charge.

Some things are inevitable = because all control is an illusion on a long enough timeline. But here’s the twist: many things aren’t inevitable. There are whole realms of your life where you can exert influence, where your actions, thoughts, and decisions have immense power. When you FOCUS on these in alignment with a REAL VISION for your life then you become unshakeable.

The secret to staying sane, staying focused, maybe even staying happy, but definitely growing REAL? Learn the difference between what you can change and what you can’t. Master the art of knowing where your time, enegery, and attention actually belongs.

The Prison of the “What Ifs”

You can waste your whole life in the prison of “what ifs.” I know this because I’ve been there. When I was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure, I spent countless hours replaying the past like a scratched record. What if I’d done something differently? What if this wasn’t happening to me?

But here’s the cold, hard truth:

The past doesn’t care about your regrets, and the future doesn’t care about your fantasies.

All that matters is what you do now.

Once I stopped trying to bargain with inevitability, I realised something: I didn’t have control over my condition, but I did have influence over how I lived with it. And that shift – from control to influence – changed my life and turned a breakdown into a BLESSING that I’m eternally grateful for even to this day (I wouldn’t be the person I am now without letting go of everything unreal and finding the REAL ‘stuff’ on the other side of it all).

Radical Honesty (and a Bit of Audacity)

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable:

To sort the world into influence vs inevitability, you have to get brutally honest with yourself. No more sugar-coating your shortcomings. No more excuses about why you’re stuck where you are. You’ve got to look at your life with the same detachment you’d use to sort through a messy wardrobe:

Keep what fits. Throw out what doesn’t.

But don’t stop there either: pair that honesty with a bit of audacity. Be playful. Experiment. Ask yourself: What happens if I push here? Maybe there’s more you can influence than you think. Maybe you’re stronger than you realise. Or maybe you’re wasting your time fighting battles that don’t belong to you. Either way, the process is worth it because it will help you find a solid foundation of TRUTH and on top of that anything you build will be REAL.

The Yin and Yang of Life

Life is a dance between influence and inevitability, between the yin of surrender and the yang of action. There are things you can shape – your habits, your health, your creative projects. And there are things you can’t – death, ageing, the laws of physics. But even the inevitabilities aren’t completely off-limits.

Take ageing, for example. You can’t stop the clock, but you can stay active, eat well, and look after your mental health. Worried about being forgotten after death? Build something meaningful – a book, a business, a relationship.

Sure, none of it guarantees immortality, but that’s not the point. The point is to engage with life, not waste it chasing control you’ll never have and wasting the only life you do have.

The Illusion of Control

Modern life thrives on the illusion of control. We’re told we can hack, optimise, and hustle our way out of anything. But that’s a lie. On a long enough timeline, control fades. What’s left is influence – and influence is what really matters because it begins with your realationship with yourself and reality (and the great dance between the Shadow Self and the Ego).

If you waste your energy clinging to control the uncontrollable, you’ll miss the chance to shape the things that actually count. But when you accept reality, something magical happens: your influence grows because YOU grow. You start to move with life, not against it. You stop swimming upstream and let the current carry you, guiding your strokes where they’re needed most.

The Freedom of Letting Go

Here’s the bottom line: the less time you spend fighting inevitability, the more time you have to build the life you want. If you can’t change something, stop obsessing over it. Let it go. Focus on what’s real, what’s here, what’s yours to shape.

Because life isn’t about controlling the uncontrollable. It’s about making an impact where you can and growing into wholeness on the way there. Forget the illusion of control. Embrace the power of influence. And watch how much lighter – and freer – you feel.

Stay real out there,

*Based on ‘Revolution’ number four in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness

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