The One Skill That Can Change How You Think, Feel, And What You Do About It - And You Can Learn It Too.

For years, I often worked in the evenings after putting my kids to bed.

I tried to make bedtime feel cosy and meaningful, but efficient. Some talking about the day, cuddles, and then straight back to my laptop.

If they asked, “Can you stay until I fall asleep?” I’d usually say, “I’m sorry, I’d love to, but I really can’t tonight, I need to finish something for work”.

I would then feel so guilty. But if I stayed, I’d feel the pressure of the work that remained undone, urging me to go back to it. No matter what I did or where I was, it didn’t feel good, and I wasn’t doing it well either.

Although I kept telling myself that things would get better after this project, and the next one, and the next one… it became clear that nothing would change until I did.

How the Change Began

A few years ago, I started my own journey towards breaking free from that guilt and pressure, and both work and my personal life became much more enjoyable. Unlike many would expect, it did not decrease my drive or performance. On the contrary, I became much more focused.

There is no magic bullet or super “hack” to get there. There is, however, an underlying skill that can be practised and learned and can change how you think, feel and act, and improve both your work and personal life.¹

That skill is agency.

What Is Agency, really?

Agency, in a nutshell, is the ability to make intentional choices and act on them.

It’s the difference between reacting out of habit and responding with clarity and intention. Between feeling like life is driving you, and being the one behind the wheel.

Unlike motivation or self-confidence, which can fluctuate more easily according to the circumstances, agency is something you can build and practise. Like a muscle.

It’s not about controlling everything. It’s about choosing how you respond, even to what you can’t control.

So, How Do You Build Agency?

Throughout my experience, I’ve identified five main ingredients that make agency possible:

1. Awareness

Understanding how we function and how much we depend on learned thought and behaviour patterns is the first step towards recognising what’s keeping us bound to them and how to break those strings.

Our brains are designed for efficiency, which means much of our behaviour runs on autopilot. But with deliberate awareness, we can begin to notice our thoughts, feelings and their patterns, rather than be driven by them.²

2. Self-regulation

This is where self-regulation comes in. Self-regulation is the ability to manage our attention, emotions, and impulses in the moment. It’s what helps us resist the urge to react on autopilot and instead choose a response that aligns with what matters most.

Without self-regulation, awareness remains abstract. With it, we create the space to act intentionally, even when it’s uncomfortable, inconvenient, or unfamiliar.

3. Uncovering choices

Once we have awareness and the ability to pause from autopilot, we can develop choices. If we do not know that we have a choice, then we do not have a choice. It’s that simple.

Finding new perspectives and different options than what we usually do and think can simply start with asking ourselves how we want to feel and what that would look like.

Reflecting on what genuinely matters to us, rather than what we fear or feel pressured to achieve, is an important distinction that can hugely help identify new, more meaningful choices.

4. Belief in one’s ability to act

At this stage, confidence and self-efficacy play a key role. Self-confidence refers to the belief in one’s ability to perform in a specific capacity. Self-efficacy, a concept introduced by Albert Bandura³, refers to the belief in your ability to take a specific action to achieve a certain result.

We want both. Confidence gives us emotional readiness. Self-efficacy gives us action readiness. Together, they support and facilitate agency, the capacity to choose and follow through.

5. Practice

Once we know what’s keeping us stuck, we pause and see options, we choose how to act about it, and we do it. And we do it again, and again, throughout the day. With practice, this becomes our way of being.

It requires effort, like any other skill. You did not learn to walk, or play guitar, or speak a new language without practice. Through repetition and reinforcement, you create new neural pathways that help cement agency as a new skill.⁴

You don’t have to feel confident. You don’t have to feel ready. You just need to tune in and choose what matters to you.

And That’s Where it Happens

When you build agency, you stop outsourcing your choices to guilt, urgency, or expectations.

You don’t have to feel confident. You don’t have to feel ready. You just need to tune in and choose what matters to you, again and again.

You start feeling good about your choices, and your choices make you feel good.⁵ You become more present in what you’re doing, you enjoy it more, and it even improves your performance as a consequence.⁶

Once you start seeing the patterns, you can’t unsee them. And from there, you’re no longer stuck.

You become unbound.