Recently I conducted two day workshop on business and life leadership. After the workshop I realized that the approach and exercises would be helpful to many who are looking to continuously improve their lives and grow. Here is a 5 part series of articles with an attempt to simplify life leadership. There are no “right or wrongs” given here, it is only an attempt to provide you steps and tools that you can apply to your life and any situation and forge your own path ahead.
Why Change?
We can make “changing and growing” a habit – a constant process of living or we can change when we are forced by external circumstances. Either ways change is inevitable.
Waking up when we have immense problems leads to excessive focus on “fixing the current problem”. At that stage people are usually not able to objectively think what is the best big picture scenario. Especially when the problems are big it is important for us step back completely and identify what our gifts are that we want to express. At this moment you will not see any connection between this step and eventual better life but trust me – this is the most important step that acts as a guide and energizer for your long term self-growth.
Bottomline is whatever our circumstances, we must take personal responsibility. We may not be able to change the people around us or circumstances but we can change ourselves. That change starts with knowing who we are.
Identifying your gifts
We all have some inherent talents and things we love to do. These are things that we are best at doing – even if it is making people laugh. Things we do uniquely and things that create joy around us when we spend energy on them. When we do these things we will eventually be the “best version of ourselves”.
Some examples of gifts that came out from various people were:
- Empathy – I can relate to diverse set of people
- Unconditional Love – I can see the good in people and I can make anyone comfortable
- Visualization – I can understand complex relationship and can present them in simplified manner
- Patience – when things go wrong I can keep my cool and help others become focused again
- Deep Dive – when I need to solve complex problems; I can take a deep dive until I find the solution
- Helpful nature – I am always willing to help people and people come to me easily when they need help
- Decisiveness – I can make decisions quickly
- Mechanical dexterity – I can fix things, put things together better than anyone I know
The list can be long and all we have to focus on is what gives us joy and not on any practical constraints that we may have. This list will help you understand what job, people, and environment are best for you. Later on you can start making changes to move towards your ideal.
Next 4 articles would be on:
2. Face your fears
3. Overcome your limiting beliefs
4. Transform your relating style
5. Build consistency and habits
very interesting and informative. congrats. godspeed ahead