Acceptance and Action: The Distinction between Influence and Control

Last month I received the sad news that two women I know, who also happen to be friends with each other, had both been diagnosed with a brain tumor. One of them has since passed away. The other probably has only two or three months left to live and will leave behind two teenage children.

There are moments when life places you, without warning, right in front of the truth you usually prefer to keep at a distance. You can plan, hope, pray, fight, prepare, negotiate and try to keep reality under control, but some things simply do not belong to you. They happen. They hurt. They interrupt everything. And they remind you that control is much smaller than we often pretend.

I am getting to an age where I will unfortunately experience more often that people are suddenly pulled out of life. That is not a pleasant thought, but it is an honest one. And exactly because of that, the question becomes more important: what can we truly control, what can we only influence, and what must we learn to accept?

Acceptance does not mean that you do nothing. Acceptance means that you stop wasting energy on what is outside your power, so you can use your strength where it still matters.

Trying to control what is not yours will exhaust you. Taking responsibility for what is yours will give you direction. Ben Steenstra

The Difference Between Control, Influence and Acceptance

A lot of stress comes from confusing control with influence. Control means that you actually determine what happens. Influence means that your words, choices, behavior or presence may have an effect, but that you do not own the outcome. Acceptance begins where both control and influence end.

When you cross a busy street, you influence your safety by looking left and right, paying attention and waiting for the right moment. But you do not control the reckless driver who suddenly comes flying around the corner.

That distinction seems simple, but in daily life we forget it constantly. We try to control what other people think of us, how someone responds to our words, whether our effort will lead to the result we want, how the future will unfold, how the past should have been, and sometimes even how life itself should behave.

That is where the tension begins. Not because we care, because caring is human, but because we start fighting for ownership over things that were never ours to own.

The Stress of Trying to Control Everything

I know people who want to keep everything under control, both in business and in private life. Some of them are such control freaks that I suspect they take out insurance for everything they cannot control, and then insure the insurance as well.

That may sound funny, but underneath it there is often something sad. People who try to control everything are usually not trying to be difficult. They are trying to feel safe. They want to prevent surprises, avoid pain, reduce uncertainty and protect themselves from disappointment.

The problem is that life does not become safer when you try to control everything. It often becomes smaller.

Everything has to be predicted, prepared, covered, prevented, managed or explained. That may create a temporary feeling of security, but the body often pays the price. People who try to control everything are often constantly running with stress in their bodies. They may look organized on the outside, but inside there is tension, alertness and the fear that something could still go wrong.

You can become so busy avoiding risk that you forget to live. Then you spend your whole life standing by the side of the road, waiting until you are absolutely certain that crossing is safe.

But absolute certainty never comes.

The real question is not how to control more. The real question is where control ends, where influence begins and where acceptance is the only honest response left.

What Is Within Your Control?

We do not control nearly as much as we would like. But we are also not powerless. There are things that are genuinely ours.

We can choose what we say. We can choose what we do. We can choose where we place our attention, which meaning we give to events, which goals we set, where we invest our energy and which boundaries we communicate. We may not always control the first emotion that rises in us, but we do have influence over how we understand it, work with it and respond to it.

That is the useful distinction.

What is usually within your control or direct responsibility:

• what you say;

• what you do;

• where you place your attention;

• the meaning you give to events;

• the goals you set;

• where you invest your energy;

• how you respond to emotions;

• the boundaries you communicate;

• how you act after setbacks;

• how much ownership you take over your own behavior.

What is usually outside your control:

• the past;

• the future;

• the final outcome of your effort;

• what others say;

• what others do;

• what others think;

• what others believe;

• illness, loss, coincidence and many circumstances outside yourself.

This is not an invitation to become passive. It is the opposite. The moment you stop fighting what is outside your control, you often become much clearer and more active in the places where you can still do something.

Control Over What You Say

I once had a girlfriend who always wanted to have the last word, especially when we disagreed. It is not entirely coincidental that she is now an ex-girlfriend.

Her reasoning was that she had to say something back because I had responded as well. As if my words automatically forced her to produce new words. As if silence was not an option.

But silence is also a choice.

You do not have to return every ball that is thrown at you. You do not have to win every discussion, correct every remark or answer every impulse. Part of growing up is realizing that you are responsible not only for what you say, but also for what you choose not to say.

Sometimes the most powerful response is not the final argument. It is the decision to stop feeding the argument.

Control Over What You Do

Nobody can move your arm with only their voice if you do not want to move it. Your body is yours. Your behavior is yours. Your hands, your posture, your presence, your actions and your reactions belong to you.

Of course, people can touch something in you. They can provoke, hurt, disappoint or challenge you. A situation can create tension. Old patterns can rise quickly. But the idea that someone else forces you to shout, hit, lie, belittle, withdraw or explode is usually a way of placing responsibility outside yourself.

That does not mean behavior is always easy to manage. People have histories, reflexes, wounds, patterns and emotional triggers. But becoming more mature means that you say “I could not help it” less often and start asking more honestly: what happened inside me that made me respond like that?

That is not about blame.

It is about ownership.

Influence Over What You Believe

We are influenced all day long. By media, conversations, social networks, news, algorithms, family, culture and people who sound very certain while they may mainly be very loud. But being influenced is not the same as having no responsibility for what you believe.

Especially when it comes to the meaning you give to something, you often have more influence than you think. Do you believe that someone who lies once is automatically a liar? Do you believe that criticism means you have failed? Do you believe that someone who does not reply is rejecting you? Do you believe that a setback proves you are not good enough?

What you believe largely shapes what you feel and how you act. That is why it matters not to treat every thought in your head as truth. Some thoughts deserve attention. Some deserve investigation. Others deserve to be politely but firmly shown the door.

You may not control every thought that appears, but you can learn not to let every thought become the driver of your life.

Influence Over Your Emotions

This part needs honesty and precision. You do not always have direct control over the first emotion that appears. Sadness, anger, fear or shame can arise faster than conscious thought. Saying that you have full control over every emotion makes life sound too mechanical and can make people feel unnecessarily guilty.

But you do have influence over the emotions we experience. Often much more than you think.

Emotions are not only caused by what happens. They are also shaped by the meaning you give to what happens. Is death only loss, or also part of the fragility of being alive? Is a breakup only rejection, or could it also be the moment when it became visible that something had not been right for a long time? Is criticism an attack, or information you might be able to use?

That does not turn grief into happiness or pain into ease. But it does change your relationship with what you feel. You do not have to deny an emotion in order to work with it differently. You can feel what you feel and still choose what you do with it.

So when I speak about control over your emotions, I do not mean that you can prevent every emotion from appearing. I mean that you can learn to understand, regulate and respond to your emotional state instead of being completely ruled by it.

That is influence. And sometimes, with practice, that influence becomes a form of inner leadership.

Control Over the Goals You Set

I have been ambitious from a young age and sometimes a little competitive as well. I wanted to be the fastest runner during hockey matches and wrote my first business plan when I was fifteen. Without consciously formulating it that way, I already understood something important: I could set myself those goals and then act on them.

If I wanted to become the fastest runner, I had to train. Whether I would actually become, be or remain the fastest was not fully in my control. But the goal, the training and the discipline that belonged to it were mine.

That distinction is important.

You do not control winning. You influence your preparation. You do not control success. You influence your behavior, choices and persistence. You do not control how others judge your work. You influence the quality of what you create.

People who understand this often become calmer and more active at the same time. They stop pretending they own the result, and they start taking responsibility for the process.

Control Over Where You Invest Your Energy

You cannot always choose what comes your way, but you can choose where your energy goes. That sounds simple, but many people keep investing energy in situations that have been draining them for years.

A relationship that no longer feels right. A collaboration in which they are not respected. A business idea that mainly still exists because they do not want to admit it is over. A conflict that no longer solves anything. A belief that only repeats pain.

Even when you cannot leave immediately, you can start moving your energy. You can spend energy on surviving, but also on preparing. You can spend energy on complaining, but also on a next step. You can spend energy on trying to change someone, but also on honestly seeing that this person may not change.

That difference matters.

Because energy is not neutral. Where you place it, your life slowly follows.

Influence Over Your Resilience

Resilience is the ability to rebound in the face of setbacks. Not because you feel nothing, but because you do not completely collapse into what happens.

In people I coach, I often see that part of their suffering does not only come from the event itself, but from the meaning they have continued to give it. An ex who ended the relationship became, for years, proof that someone was not good enough. But it could also have been the moment when it became clear that the relationship was unhealthy, unequal or never really right in the first place.

That does not erase the pain. But it changes the story.

Sometimes what felt like a setback was not a setback, but a painful interruption that forced you to see something you had been avoiding. That does not mean you have to call everything positive. That is superficial. It means you can place events in a wider perspective without losing yourself in one painful interpretation.

You have influence over that. Not always immediately. Sometimes only after time, reflection, conversations and honest looking. But you are not powerless in relation to the story you keep telling about your life.

Control Over the Boundaries You Set

I know many people who make very little use of the boundaries they are allowed to set. Others think they are setting boundaries, but phrase them so carefully that the other person can hardly understand what is actually being said.

If you say to your partner, “I sometimes do not really like that you give me so little attention, but I understand that you are busy,” that is not a clear boundary. It is a careful complaint with an escape route already built in for the other person.

The other person cannot magically know that what you really mean is: “I need attention, involvement and real presence to keep feeling connected in this relationship. If that is structurally missing, I will lose interest and start withdrawing.”

That is clear.

Not hard. Not dramatic. But honest.

Setting boundaries does not mean taking control over the other person. It means making clear where you begin, where you end and what the consequence is if something structurally does not work for you. The other person keeps their freedom.

And so do you.

What You Must Accept

In reality, we have no control over almost everything that was not mentioned above. But because these are exactly the things where people often waste the most energy, it is useful to name them clearly.

We have no control over the past. Most people agree with that in theory, but many still live as if they are trying to renegotiate with what has already happened. They keep replaying scenarios, finishing sentences that were never spoken and fighting decisions that can no longer be changed.

We also have no control over the future. We can prepare, choose, save, train, learn, build and give direction. But life remains capable of doing something entirely different from what we had in mind.

A woman I knew had been working toward her dream of becoming a physiotherapist from a young age. She studied hard, graduated cum laude and immediately received a job offer. Before starting, she decided to spend one week in Greece. There she was bitten by a mosquito, became seriously ill and eventually ended up paralyzed in a wheelchair.

That is not a story to make you afraid.

It is a story to make you humble.

You can do a lot. You can prepare a lot. You can influence a lot. But you do not own the outcome.

No Control Over the Outcome of Your Effort

You can do your very best for someone and still not receive the result you hoped for. You can organize a romantic dinner, buy a thoughtful gift, choose your words carefully and still discover that the other person is emotionally already somewhere else. You can build a company with everything you have and still be overtaken by timing, market conditions, illness, bad luck or a competitor who moves at exactly the right moment.

That does not make effort meaningless.

On the contrary. Effort is often the only dignified answer we have.

But the outcome of effort is not fully ours. If you refuse to accept that, you become bitter. If you do accept it, you can keep acting without lying to yourself that every result is makeable.

No Control Over What Others Say, Do, Think or Believe

Some people would love others to say exactly what they want to hear, in the style they prefer, at the moment they are ready for it. You see this especially with feedback. People often say they want honesty, but preferably wrapped in the right tone, at the right time, without too much discomfort.

But that is not how the world works.

You have no control over what someone else says or how they say it. Just as you have no control over what someone else does, thinks or believes. And honestly, you should not want that kind of control. You would not want someone else to determine your words, your thoughts or your beliefs either.

That does not mean everything is acceptable. Behavior can be disrespectful. Words can be harmful. Boundaries may be needed. But control over the other person is not yours. What is yours is your response, your clarity, your boundary and your decision whether or not you remain in that dynamic.

Why Action Becomes Clearer After Acceptance

The paradox is that people often fear that acceptance will make them passive, while the opposite is usually true. As long as you fight what is outside your control, you lose energy. Once you accept what is not yours, space opens for action.

If someone is seriously ill, you do not control the illness. But you may still influence presence, support, tenderness, practical help, words, silence and love.

If someone misunderstands you, you do not control what they think. But you do influence how clearly you communicate.

If a relationship no longer works, you do not control the willingness of the other person. But you do influence your honesty, your boundary and your choice.

If the past hurts, you do not control what happened. But you do influence the meaning you continue to give it and the help you seek to learn how to live with it differently.

Acceptance is not the end of action.

It is the beginning of adult action.

From Control to Responsibility

Control says: I need the world to behave in a certain way before I can be calm.

Responsibility says: I see that the world does not always behave the way I want, and I still choose how I deal with it.

That is a different level of living. Less cramped. Less dependent on perfect circumstances. Not because you will never be afraid, sad or angry again, but because you no longer wait for everything outside you to be right before you allow yourself to act with clarity.

Maybe that is exactly what loss, illness and adversity show us in such a hard way. We have less control than we think.

But often more influence than we use.

Final Thought

We cannot fully control life. We cannot hold on to people who have to leave. We cannot always stop illness. We cannot rewrite the past or own the future. We cannot determine what others say, do, think or believe.

But we are not powerless.

We can choose what we say. What we do. Where we place our attention. Which meaning we give. Which goals we set. Where we invest our energy. How we respond to emotions. Which boundaries we communicate. And how we keep standing when life does something we never asked for.

That is the difference between control, influence and acceptance.

Control tries to force reality.

Influence takes responsibility within reality.

Acceptance stops fighting the parts of reality that were never ours to command.

And maybe peace begins exactly there. Not when everything is certain, but when you stop fighting what is not yours and start acting on what is.