Why trying harder is making you feel powerless
How we mistake effort for agency
I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of agency.
Partly because of conversations with my clients. And partly because I recently heard psychologist Angela Duckworth talking about an idea she calls situational agency.
Duckworth is best known for her research on grit. But her latest work adds an interesting twist: trying harder isn’t always the answer. Sometimes, instead of changing ourselves, we need to change something about the situation.
As Duckworth explains, while there are circumstances we genuinely cannot change, “there’s almost always something you can.” That got me thinking about how we respond when something isn’t working.
Many of us high-achieving women turn inward. We work harder. Prepare more. Become more accommodating. Ask ourselves what we could be doing differently. It feels like agency because we’re doing something about it.
But effort and agency aren’t the same thing.
Effort is about how hard we try.
Agency is our sense that we have choices — that there are actions available to us that can affect what happens next.
And I’m noticing an interesting pattern. When we start to lose our sense of agency, we often compensate by increasing our effort. We work harder within the choices we can already see, rather than stopping to consider whether there are choices we’re not seeing at all.
A woman leader I recently coached described a period when she wasn’t getting the information she needed to lead effectively. Important decisions were happening without her. Priorities weren’t clear. She found herself looking for clues about what mattered and whether she was on the right track.
She noticed something else happening too. Without the information she needed, she started questioning herself. So, she worked harder. Dug further into the details. Became more vigilant and reactive.
Eventually, a change in the people around her gave her greater access to the information she needed, and she felt more grounded in her leadership. What interested me most was what she learned from the experience — that even when we don't have control over a decision, there is almost always some agency to be found.
Maybe you can’t change the decision. But perhaps you can influence how it gets implemented. You can seek out information you aren't getting. Ask different questions. Decide how you communicate it to your team. Look for the part that is still yours.
That’s agency.
Another woman leader I know had almost the opposite experience.
She joined an organization and knew very early that something wasn't right. She found herself working for a difficult leader within a fractured and toxic environment. So, when her confidence began to erode, her response was to work day and night trying to prove her value so she could change how she was perceived. But the more fearful she became, the less agency she felt she had.
And that's the paradox. When we feel powerless, our instinct is often to double down on what we are already doing. Agency asks us to widen the lens and consider the full range of choices still available to us.
Eventually, she recognized that leaving was leaning into her agency and her best option.
None of this means pretending we control everything.
Organizations restructure. Bosses make decisions we disagree with. People exclude us from conversations. Cultures reward behaviours we don’t value. And financial or personal circumstances can constrain the choices available to us.
But not being able to control everything is very different from having no agency at all.
So, the next time you are feeling stuck and find yourself doubling down on your effort to make something work, take a few minutes to think about what else you can do to widen the lens.
Ask yourself:
Where am I putting in more effort without changing the outcome?
Recognition: I'm spinning my wheels.What about this situation could I influence or change?
Agency: what I can impact around me?What option am I not considering because it feels too difficult, risky or uncomfortable? Expansion: what choices am I not considering?
You may still decide the situation really can't be changed. But I’m guessing that you’ll start to see that you do have more choices than you realized.
And I hope you will trust yourself enough to act on them.