New Year 3 – Self-empowerment...

You may not know, but the reason you fail to fulfill your purest and highest resolutions for this new year is that you lack power.

Power is what makes you overcome the different barriers that life usually places on us. It is therefore important that you generate a routine of self-empowerment. I share mine as an example:

• Every day I wake up to experience raja yoga meditation for almost an hour. Meditation may not be your thing, but there are several things you can do such as praying, reflecting or walking in the middle of nature, with a clear purpose.
• A short while later, I study daily; it is a spiritual class which objective is to give me elements to change my life and live it better. Instead of receiving news, usually bad, focus on receiving a knowledge that uplifts you.
• During the day, I meditate and reflect on the daily class or other similar sources of knowledge; it is important for me to maintain this state of consciousness. Looking for the continuous flow of knowledge that uplifts you is fundamental in your work, even doing breaks for your self-improvement.
• An important thing I found out and included in my routine is to serve others in some way. Volunteer service generates an enormous amount of power.
• Finally, I OBSERVE MYSELF DAILY; I see what I could change and find out what I couldn't. Self-observation, even if it is not followed up with decisions or changes, may transform reality.

For a better productivity, you need to study

For me it is not only about being productive, it is about life… After all, if you are really productive, you will be able to live even better.

I am constantly paying attention to new articles and studies on productivity, prioritization and anything that helps me to have my job done in the most productive way and to live my life in a better way.

So study and research are integral part of improving productivity as better methods keep emerging and by going deeply into the subject, it is possible to conciliate the various areas of a person’s life.

If you can, get enrolled to a course, but if not, just browse videos, articles and books on the subject. Ah, very important: APPLY whatever you read that touches you. I am sure you don’t need any more theory in the shelf of your head, right?

I hope this helps you to be more productive! Check my post on productivity too.

https://lookingformorethanjob.blogspot.com/2019/06/tips-of-productivity.html

Self-empowerment

Leadership is a very complex thing, you can talk and write about it for years and still there is always something else to talk about. For instance, what about the fact that leaders today have EVERYTHING, in terms of information, knowledge, etc., and still they make so many mistakes...?

Well, I myself wrote a lot in this blog about it and about some of its by-products. One of them is empowerment.

Empowerment could be seen as the first "taste" someone gets of leadership - it is that moment when your mom trusted in you to buy the right brand of butter, or your boss trusted you that big project. It is different than delegation as in the last one, mom and boss will be hovering around all the time and you will be only their arms, their worker...

A fully empowered person has the chance to practice some leadership and test some concepts too in a quite safe environment, as the final responsibility still will go to mom (if the cake is not tasty, nobody will blame you) an boss (if the project is successful or no, he will be known for that). But it is a good beginning for many people. When you are the leader, success or failure always comes to you.

And that responsibility weights... it is heavier than many burdens. And if you have some personal life, then the burden seems to multiply itself.

As a coach, I have to deal with situations like that from other people. As a consultant, I have to tell others what to do, nice suggestions from a bright mind. As a leader, I have to deal with the situations... myself. And I know how heavy they can seem.

So, it is very important to empower the self too and that has two different meanings: you start to trust yourself in dealing with the situations with whatever you have learned or with advice from people you chose to trust. The second meaning is to fill you with power. Both have the same intention: enable the self to face situations, the burden a leader carries, and to start the self on the pathway towards self-leadership.

Thinking about self-empowerment and its impact in my life, I have difficulties to even imagine myself as a non-empowered person. I have known many like that; for them, life is always threatening, people are always wrong and they are always right. It is the life either of an eternal victim or someone who thinks only his ideas are right, and they are not...

I will mention here what I do for myself. I am sure you can add or adapt that for your own life:

• Meditation. First things first; I need some time with myself, I need to understand what is going on in my mind, why I am having thoughts like these... Meditation is also for me a mean to get the eight powers I need (check my post on 8 attitudes) and a way to relate to God, and other people better. When I meditate, I feel the self, filling with energy, I feel my decisions are clearer and I have the power to implement them.
• Study. Leadership is a road where you have to study forever. Same applies to self-leadership and, of course, self-empowerment. What I have in consideration is that my study is useful, it creates an impact in my life an in others' lives and it "tunes" with me. When I was a high-school student, I used to love Math and hate Biology; the last it was because it didn't "tune" with me. Your study has to respond to questions like "Who am I?" and "What am I doing here?". Of course, it has to help you to solve the riddle "What will I do in this situation?".
• Blessings. Yep, that is it, I live on blessings most of the time. Let me explain what I mean: do you know when you do something good to another person? First, there is the soft sensation inside your mind, the pleasure of helping another human being. Second, there is a subtle energy you will feel, probably later and when you are under stress that will help you to overcome it - that is what I mean by "blessings". It empowers the self because it gives us a relief during moments when otherwise you would feel the pressure.

When you are a fully empowered person, the world will change around you as there won't be anything you can't do and your leadership will be a real one, as you would have started with yourself.

To be a leader, without tension

This is a series of tips especially created to help leaders to be free of tension.

TIPS to be a tension-free leader

1. Awareness - it is imperative the leader takes over his own responsibility over tension, without blaming others or making excuses.
2. Research - it is useful to know the reasons for tension, which means to read articles and talk to experts.
3. Communication - the leader must clarify to people in a 360 degree (that means, all the people they are related), that he or she is under tension; this is a must in the case of people who are affected by that.
4. Healing - the key for healing tension is a deep inner loving dialogue; to love yourself relieves or eliminates tension.
5. Maintenance - tension can come back at any moment; it is very important to develop habits to prevent that.
6. Meditation - meditation practise helps leader to clarify her/his own life, detaching and experiencing going beyond tension.
7. Exercise - to move the body prevents tension that comes due to basic physical problems; to walk is the best for that.
8. Diet - more than a particular diet, there has to be consistency and healthy habits.
9. Positive - it helps to look for more sources, like lectures, videos and talks, that makes the leader more positive.
10. Voluntarism - one of the foundations to prevent tension is to do something that serves others without receiving anything back, which makes the self more balanced.

About coming back to work

As I said in a former post, this blog was designed because of my lack of proper work. Something happened in my life, and companies were not calling me for help. In fact, they were not calling me for anything, really.

I really had the opportunity, the golden chance of learning that having a job is more than working, and that is the reason of this blog.

Now, work is coming back. Slowly, but steady, I am being called by many companies to help them. They are still small projects, but for me they are BIG, because they are a direct fruit of a long work on my own self.

Then, I see other issues emerging, and I feel it is good to revise them, turning them in valuable lessons others can be benefitted:

• The need of having humility and high self-esteem. Working with spirituality, I always know and talk about to have the balance between these two qualities, but I have been faced with them a lot. After all, you cannot tell others something you are not doing, but you have to value your conquests and ideas, as they are your real wealth. As a consultant, one of the techniques is to share examples, and sometimes you think your examples are good, when they are not. But at other times, your example will be the perfect one for the situation, be ready to know the difference.
• The need of researching and studying. One of the opportunities I've got was to deliver a course that I did not do for at least TEN YEARS! It evolved, and I realised (unfortunately, during the same course) that I should study more and research more. One of my mistakes would be too embarrassing, if it was not noticed by a good friend, who did not push.
• Focus, more focus. During my time without job, I generated around 10 areas of work. But, as I am performing again, to keep up with 10 areas of work is not easy, and it would be stressing in the long term. With the help of a coach, I was able to group those 10 areas in... well, 7 areas... As you see, I am still working on that focus.
• CLEAR AIM. I've put myself an immediate aim - 10 days of work! And that is what I have got. So, I have to clear my aim a little bit, remind myself the year has 365 days and my life won't finish on 2012, no matter what fake Mayans are saying. So, don't talk about such a short aim, rather than that plan it better.
• Don't lose courage. When I am working, I feel sometimes a little "rusty". Courage is needed to keep on doing, to just keep on performing and little by little rust will fade away eventually and you will see your optimum performance coming back.
• Don't be afraid of checking yourself. It is harsh. That course with my friend... my God, he was calling me apart, telling me what was wrong with me, with no mercy. And that was wonderful. You do need to check yourself, or being checked by someone else, so that you can improve.

Take care and keep on moving.