Agency: How We Lose It
Part of the Reclaiming Your Agency Series
Most people don’t lose their agency in one dramatic moment.
It happens quietly — one small surrender at a time.
A choice you didn’t make because you didn’t want to rock the boat.
A meeting where your voice felt like too much.
A comment you swallowed because you wanted to stay “easy to work with.”
It’s the slow slide from participation to performance, from being to pleasing.
And sometimes, we don’t even realize it’s happening until we wake up one day exhausted, detached, and unsure how we got here.
The Systems That Shrink Us
Agency doesn’t just disappear — it’s taken, chipped away by systems designed to keep people compliant.
Gender expectations: Women, especially, are taught to prioritize harmony over honesty. A 2023 McKinsey & LeanIn.org Women in the Workplace report found that 42% of women say they’re often penalized for behaviors that are rewarded in men, such as speaking assertively or taking charge.
Workplace cultures: A Gallup 2024 study showed that 59% of employees feel they “lack control” over their workload or schedule, directly correlating to burnout and disengagement.
Social media: Algorithms are built to reward comparison and outrage, not authenticity. Neuroscience research from NYU’s Center for Social Media Impact found that even short bursts of exposure to highly curated feeds increase self-doubt and passive consumption, both of which reduce perceived agency.
The pattern is clear: the world profits when we stop believing we have choices.
The Stories That Keep Us Small
But it’s not just systems. It’s stories — the ones we’ve internalized.
“Don’t be difficult.”
“Be grateful.”
“Don’t make it about you.”
These are cultural scripts passed down, especially to women and marginalized identities, teaching us that safety equals silence. That belonging comes from blending in.
But fitting in is the enemy of agency.
When you shrink yourself to fit, you disconnect from your own voice — and that’s the voice that makes choice possible.
The Psychology of Learned Helplessness
Psychologist Martin Seligman’s early research on learned helplessness showed how repeated experiences of powerlessness can actually rewire the brain. When people perceive that their actions no longer make a difference, they stop trying — even when new opportunities arise.
That’s where many of us live now: stuck between exhaustion and apathy. We’ve tried to raise our hands, speak up, fix the system — and it didn’t work. So we retreat.
But learned helplessness can be unlearned. Studies show that reframing small, achievable actions as wins — even things as simple as setting a boundary or saying “no” — begins to rebuild a sense of agency and psychological safety.
Agency doesn’t return all at once. It returns in small acts of resistance: saying what you mean, choosing what you consume, deciding what deserves your attention.
Rebuilding Starts with Naming
You can’t reclaim what you won’t name.
Where has your power been outsourced — to other people’s expectations, to institutions, to algorithms, to fear?
Write it down. Call it what it is. That naming is the first act of reclaiming.
Because when you name where your agency was lost, you begin to see where it can be found.
Journal Prompt:
What systems, stories, or patterns make you feel smaller than you are? What would it look like to quietly defy one of them this week?
Next in the series: Day 4 – Building It Back.
How to rebuild trust in your own voice through consistent action and self-leadership.
