The Elements of World-Changing Self-Leadership
The world has its fill of failure, heartache, and regret. But the same world is full of success, love, and joy. Which will your story be?
This life is a wonderful one—if you make it so.
You have more influence over your life than any other person on earth. You may not be able to control your world, but you can alter it.
Changing your world isn't easy, but it is within your reach.
Self-leadership is where it all starts. And self-leadership is where it all comes together.
Self-Leadership of Time
Time is the most valuable resource you own. Whether you'll live for twenty-eight years or one hundred, your time will run out. Until then, you have to choose how to spend the time you are given.
This is where focus hits home.
There's a reason I write so much about productivity. Without focus, without intentionality, the important stuff doesn't happen.
Your time is your own, but you must take control of it—or someone else will.
Self-Leadership of Character
Your character is what you make of it. You are given something and challenged to take it from there. The rest is up to you.
This is where integrity is born.
Character has the needs of a garden. Besides sunlight, it needs good soil and water.
Without water, it will wither away and die. Integrity requires the water of solitude, reflection, and meditation, or prayer.
Without good soil, it won't have the nutrients it needs to grow. To develop, integrity needs an environment of quality friends, loved ones, and a few good books.
Self-Leadership of Action
Sometimes you schedule the perfect routine, and nothing goes as planned.
Sometimes you're thrown into impossible situations, where all you want to do is give up.
This is where discipline is key.
Discipline involves accepting what you can't change, but taking charge of what you can.
Discipline means doing what's right, whether or not it ends up being easy. Steven Covey said it best,
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.
All of these traits—focus, integrity, and discipline—are key to world-changing success. But they also take time to acquire.
Rarely do these traits appear when they're needed most. They need to be developed over time, and that is why self-leadership is an everyday challenge.
How can you practice these elements of world-changing self-leadership?
