You now have your demands written down. The next step is to sort them using one question: is there something I can realistically do about this?

Not whether you should be able to change it, and not who is responsible. Simply ask whether there is something you can do from where you are now.

• Things I can act on. Some may be small and immediate. Others may require a conversation or a decision you have been putting off.
• Things I cannot change directly. A restructure, wider industry conditions, decisions made above your manager, or a role that genuinely contains the workload of two jobs.

Both groups need a response, but the response is different. Knowing which one you are dealing with can save a lot of energy.

Things you can act on need a next step. Choose one concrete action that is small enough to happen this week. You do not need a complete plan yet. Focus on the next thing you can actually do, send the message, schedule fifteen minutes, or write the first sentence.

Things you cannot change directly need a different approach. When something feels outside your control, it is easy to keep thinking about it or to act as if it should not affect you. Neither is particularly helpful. Instead:

• Recognise it as something that is costing you energy, rather than a problem you are failing to solve. You do not need to take responsibility for fixing something that is outside your control.
• Ask what it changes for you. Even a demand you cannot remove may affect what you agree to, how long you are willing to continue in the same situation, or what you stop treating as temporary. Those are decisions you can still make.
• Check whether all of it is really outside your control. You may not be able to change the entire situation, but there may still be one part you can influence. You cannot stop a restructure, for example, but you may be able to ask for clarity about how it affects your role.

One of the most useful things about this exercise is that it prevents the things you cannot change from using up all the energy you need for the things you can. It is natural to spend more time worrying about the situations that feel most uncertain or difficult, but that can leave very little capacity for the changes that are actually possible.

If almost everything ends up in the second group, that is useful information too. It does not mean the exercise has failed. A job where you have very little influence over the things affecting you may have a significant lack of resources, in the sense discussed in Lesson 2. Personal strategies can help, but they cannot solve every problem in the work environment. The next lesson looks at what you can ask for and where you may still be able to create change.