Model of Excellence Blog - empowerment

Leadership is an inside job

You have every thing you need within you, if you allow yourself to access it. And the words you use daily are key to unleashing that potential.

Have you ever noticed how your mood is affected by your words and your thinking and how you choose words that reflect your mood?

  • If you use the language of doubt and fear, then you will focus on and notice problems.
  • If you use the language of hope and confidence, then you will feel happy and notice opportunities.

This is my EmPowered Alphabet: 26 words to empower you and your leadership dream. This collection of words lifts my energy and frames my thinking for an empowered mindset where I am confident and lead the way. These words reflect what is important to me, beliefs I wish to hold, concepts that are key to my purpose in this world and my identity. These are words and ideas that empower me to have the life I dream of.

Why not decide on your own alphabet to embrace and focus your thinking and values to bring your leadership dream alive.

Let’s start with my ABC …

Abundance is about noticing what we have and believing there is enough. An empowering perspective.

We are in times where scarcity thinking is very prevalent all around us. Given that we’re negatively wired, we’re probably all naturally vulnerable to scarcity thinking and working on this mindset made such a difference to my wellbeing. Stephen Covey coined the term abundance mentality or abundance mindset in his 1989 best-seller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

An abundant thinker believes there are enough resources and successes to share with others and is open to possibilities, options, alternatives and creativity whereas a scarcity thinker believes there are limited resources and fears that if someone else ‘wins’ then they lose. Their sense of worth comes from being compared.

Creating an abundance mindset allows you to feel satisfied, happy and confident despite external circumstances.

The best place to start building that mindset is looking at nature as it keeps on giving and is truly resilient. Look closely and APPRECIATE what you are seeing.

Scarcity is about fear of missing out, panic buying, anxiety, deprivation dieting, seeing yourself as not good enough for promotion or your colleagues as a threat.

Abundance is about ACCEPTING where and who you are now and trusting there is enough to go around.

It means believing that if the job is right for you, it will be yours not worrying you’re not as good as the other 500 applicants. Believing that the universe will help you find the money for that course, that holiday or that bill. Believing that you have enough time, and making time for things that are important to you rather than just the things that are urgent.

So much of our world in education is constructed around scarcity thinking – fear of what will happen if we fail, ranked marking (if everyone did amazingly, they would still ‘fail’ some), not enough staff or budget, yet each year amazing teams make their school work.

How many times in a day are you undermined by ‘not enough’? How can you counteract and change that thinking?

This thinking empowers because we put the choice and influence back with us rather than feeling like a victim, feeling powerless.

Welcome your competition rather than fear them – how are you different? what can you learn from them? Visualise yourself paying the bill and all the things you have enjoyed as a result and imagine lots more money where that came from (there’s a lot in circulation!).

You are enough. There is enough.

A belief is not a fact, it is an opinion. A belief is formed by having the same thought repeatedly.

You can have empowering beliefs and limiting beliefs.

A limiting belief that was formed when you were young (between 1 and 7) is more entrenched due to imprinting.

For example beliefs like I’m no good at interviews, I don’t have enough time, I’m not someone who will get to the top, clever people don’t like me, I never win, successful leaders are unkind, I don’t have enough confidence, I’m not good enough.

When we tell ourselves these stories, we look for evidence to support the belief we hold, to reinforce that belief. Until we believe it’s true.

You can choose to hold a new belief instead.

You can simply present your brain with evidence for that new belief, keep challenging that old belief and change your behaviour.

So start noticing the beliefs you hold, that you deem to be true, and decide if they are helpful to you.

If not, change them one small (or big!) limiting belief at a time to a more empowering belief that will allow you to flourish.

Confidence is not an innate quality that people either have or don’t have. It is experienced, it is built through repetition.

Yes, some children may have more confidence than others, and it is the response of the adults when they have a go and ‘fail’ which either increases or decreases their confidence, their resilience.

First, work out what is holding you back: not good enough thinking, fear of failure, worrying about what other people think, fear of success, catastrophising, fear of rejection, etc.

Then decide if you’re willing to take the risk of getting out of your comfort zone – you know, the place where growth happens – so that you can widen your comfort zone, your pool of strengths, build your confidence to take risks.

Ask yourself what is the worst thing that can happen? And the best? The most likely? And then choose what to do – you always have a choice, so choose consciously rather than by default.

You can practise building confidence by using techniques like;

  • ’20 seconds of courage’ and then just doing it – whatever it is you think you can’t do.
  • Saying ‘yes’ and then worrying about the how after
  • Repeating an affirmation daily, eg I am an empowered woman who takes risks.
  • Building self-compassion, with less judgement comes less fear of failure and more self-efficacy.

When we are successful, we get a dopamine hit, and the more successes we have, the more we get addicted to the dopamine hit. So choose small achievable tasks to get out of your comfort zone and build your confidence.

Or maybe just decide you do have confidence, and create a new belief.

Read the whole alphabet HERE

If you would like support to create an abundant mindset, to create empowering beliefs, to build your confidence, then email me or call me to book an EmPower Hour and lets start shifting your thinking.

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