When we fail to exercise self-leadership, we give our power away to others and/or circumstances. So, how can we increase our practice of self-leadership? How can we cultivate it as a habit of mind? Here are five suggestions:
- First, accept at a deep level that you are responsible for your past and present responses to what life has brought your way. Don’t deny the past or present and their impact on you. But accept that you had a role in adopting whatever negative beliefs, attitudes, and self-concepts that may have become imbedded in your life as a result of your past and present responses to life’s hardships. Give up the very understandable and natural desire to blame others for your difficulties or negative emotions. Choose to accept that your outlook and emotional responses to life’s challenges are your own choice.
- Second, start monitoring your self-talk and assumptions in specific situations. Watch to see when you are saying things to yourself (or others) like, “Well, if only they would…” or, “There’s nothing you can do when…” or, “I will never be able to…” These types of statements, verbalized or thought, lead away from the concept of self-leadership towards blaming and reactivity.
- Third, when faced with a difficult situation, consciously ask yourself, “What would it mean to exercise self-leadership right now?” If, for example, your manager reacts emotionally when under pressure and humiliate you in front of others on a regular basis, ask yourself, “What would it mean for me to exercise self-leadership in this situation?” There are numerous possible answers that could be right for you: choosing to confront your boss at a separate time when you are calm, transferring to a different department, reminding yourself of the pressure that your boss is under and deciding not to take it personally. By asking the question you create the space to be proactive rather than reactive. If you have the time, write down your answers or, if you prefer, talk it through with someone to gain clarity about the best response for you.
Until self-leadership becomes a habit of mind, we will often need to pause and consciously shift to a self-leadership stance. Posing and answering this question forces us to look at circumstances and decisions from a self-leadership perspective.
- Fourth, deepen your own self-awareness. The more you know about your deepest needs and values, your talents and strengths, as well as your stressors and blind spots, the more you can make choices that result in greater satisfaction and effectiveness. Self-awareness allows you to play to your strengths in exercising self-leadership. It allows you to better get your needs met, manage your stress, and compensate for your weaknesses. It helps you create circumstances that work for you, not against
- Fifth, dream of the future you want to have. While taking action is the ultimate expression of self-leadership, visualizing the future we want to have (whether that is a matter of responding differently in your current circumstances or changing the circumstances themselves) is a key for increasing our motivation for action. Furthermore, it actually increases the likelihood that we will do what we are visualizing. Athletes have used the power of positive visualization for years to increase their levels of performance by visualizing themselves excelling. Recent studies have demonstrated that visualization actually creates the patterns in our brains in advance that we will use during the actual performance.
Most of us already visualize regularly. It’s just that usually we envision things going poorly. Why not use the power of this mental process in a positive way? Exercise self-leadership over your imagination by using positive visualization to increase your likelihood of success. These five suggestions should get you started on the road to self-leadership. Self-leadership isn’t easy. But it is vital. It is the foundation of personal and professional success.