The Return to Agency: How to Reclaim Your Power

Second Level Thinking · Issue 33

Why what really matters is the incremental improvement of your position. Stop letting the world happen to you and start shaping it.

We live in an era of infinite input. Notifications, obligations, content, expectations - all competing for your attention, all trying to tell you what to do next. And in that noise, something vital often goes quiet:

We forget that we are not passengers. We are architects.

Agency is the quiet force that underlies every meaningful decision, every brave leap, and every act of integrity. It is not always loud or dramatic - it’s often subtle and internal. It’s the moment you say, "No more," or "I will," or simply, "I choose."

In a world that often tries to automate, outsource, and standardise us, Agency is the reclamation of your creative sovereignty. It’s the signal that your life is not on autopilot. It’s being fully awake to your role as the author of your actions, your outcomes, and your future.

At the centre of every transformation, be it personal, professional, or societal, is one force: Agency.

What Is Agency?

Agency is more than free will. It’s not just the ability to make a choice—it’s the recognition that your choices matter, that your actions create.

Agency is intention + action + belief.

• Intention: Knowing what matters.

• Action: Doing something about it.

• Belief: Trusting that it will have an effect.

When intention is unclear, we drift. When action is delayed, we stall. When belief is absent, we play small. But when all three align, we become powerful.

Agency is what allows us to shift from passive observers of our lives to active participants in them. It's the foundation of self-authorship, or as Scott Galloway describes:

“Agency is the capacity to take the actions of your choosing, and through those actions shape your future and the world you live in. More than that, it is the recognition that you have the potency to make it happen. Agency is a fundamental aspect of human autonomy and identity. Individuals who perceive themselves as agents are more motivated, capable, and resilient. A society made up of immigrants has superior genes — they have DNA that naturally connects risks, and a propensity toward action, with better outcomes. I think, as a dad, one of my responsibilities is to help my sons connect actions, good and bad, with outcomes. To help them develop pattern recognition between action and reaction.”

Why We Lose It

The modern world is not built to protect agency.

• Social platforms reward reaction over reflection.

• Bureaucracies reward compliance over creativity.

• Hustle culture rewards visibility over vision.

Technology nudges us toward convenience, but often at the cost of consciousness. We end up numbed by choice, addicted to noise, and disconnected from the deeper drivers of our lives. It’s easier to conform than to carve a new path.

And so we live in performance mode—checking boxes, hitting targets, scrolling endlessly—all the while forgetting that we are allowed to design a different reality.

We wait for permission to begin. We wait until we’re ready, or confident, or told it’s okay. But agency doesn’t wait, it activates.

The Moment You Reclaim It

Agency is reclaimed in a single decision:

“This is my life. I’m choosing to shape it.”

It may be small:

• Turning your phone off for the afternoon.

• Saying no to something that drains you.

• Starting the side project you’ve dreamed of.

But it doesn’t stop there. That first act leads to another. And another. Before long, you’ve re-entered your life not as a spectator, but as a sculptor.

Each act strengthens your internal signal. Each moment of intentionality becomes a vote for your future self. You become someone who creates momentum, not waits for it. And the more you exercise your agency, the more powerful and integrated it becomes.

Agency in Practice: Three Lenses

1. Personal Agency

The power to choose your habits, relationships, and mental frameworks.

This is where agency begins. It’s in the food you eat, the words you use, the thoughts you allow to repeat. It's in the decision to question inherited beliefs, to establish new rituals, and to cultivate boundaries that protect your energy.

“I do not have to repeat what I inherited.”

Personal agency asks: Am I living by design or by default? It reminds us that we can rewrite the scripts we've been handed.

2. Professional Agency

The capacity to shape your work, your time, and your value.

Too many of us fall into roles, titles, and systems that once felt aspirational but now feel restrictive. Professional agency is the courage to reimagine your relationship to work. To build what you want to see. To challenge the norms that don’t serve you—or others.

It could mean starting a business, changing industries, or simply working differently within your current role. It’s less about escape, and more about authorship.

“I can initiate. I can reinvent. I can create value.”

Professional agency isn't just about ambition—it’s about alignment.

3. Collective Agency

The shared ability to shape systems, stories, and communities.

Agency is not a solo project. When individuals act with intention together, something extraordinary happens: change compounds. Cultures shift. Institutions evolve. Movements are born.

Collective agency reminds us that we are not alone in our desire to create better worlds. It connects our individual choices to a wider narrative of impact and meaning.

“When individuals act together, movements are born.”

Your actions, however small, echo through the spaces you inhabit. The ripple effect is real.

From Drift to Design

Life isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you are constantly shaping.

This isn’t about control, as the world is uncertain. Things will happen beyond your influence. But agency is about response, not control. It’s about reclaiming the ability to respond with clarity, courage, and creativity.

You move from drifting with the tide to swimming with intention. You stop waiting for certainty and start creating momentum.

We live in an era of unprecedented reach. This is not limited to the U.S., but the U.S. is the epicenter. If you have something to say and a compelling way to say it, you can reach hundreds of millions of people without gatekeepers or sponsors. In 2012, Jimmy Donaldson was a 13-year-old with a YouTube channel. Today, Mr Beast is 26 and has a YouTube channel with a $48 million production budget reaching hundreds of millions and generating $700 million in annual revenue.

When you stop waiting. You start choosing.

Final Reflection: What Will You Build?

Ask yourself:

• Where in my life am I drifting?

• What am I deferring that I already know matters?

• What’s one decision I can make today to signal my return to agency?

Because once you realize you can, it becomes impossible to ignore that you must.

You are not just a product of your past. You are a participant in your future.

You exercise agency whenever you make a choice to shape your own life. Choosing marriage is exercising agency. Asking for more responsibility at work, or volunteering at a local institution, or putting $100 a month into a Superannuation account — these are all choices to act and shape the world. Using social media to connect to people and share ideas can be an exercise of agency; scrolling TikTok all evening is not.

The stoics taught us to focus on what is in our control. Agency is an embrace, and broadening, of what is in our control. Let’s go!

Parting Shot

“It doesn’t matter what position you find yourself in right now. What matters is whether you improve your position today. Every ordinary moment is an opportunity to make the future easier or harder.”

Finally, always remember the three lenses of opportunity cost: Compared with what? And then what? At the expense of what?

— Shane Parrish