The Importance Of Personal Leadership
-Paul J. Meyer
Personal leadership is not something we’re born with. It’s something you develop through experience, effort, and practice. It’s something you work on every day. But why would I do that, you ask?
Benefits of Strong Personal Leadership
First of all, personal leadership is crucial to achieving your long-term goals and to your career success. As you develop it, you’ll learn more about your strengths and weaknesses. From there, you can work on developing different skills and using your strengths more efficiently, which will lead to learning how to work smart and effective to get to the future you want for yourself.
Having strong personal leadership means you’re getting to know yourself. Thus, you’ll be more aware of the things you truly want and the things you maybe thought you want, but actually, that wish wasn’t authentic. It was rather driven by outer factors, such as expectations or other people’s wishes. With getting to know yourself and acquiring knowledge about the world, which are both parts of developing personal leadership, comes wisdom.
So, what have you done to improve your personal leadership today?
4 Tips To Deal With Back to School Stress
Back to school season can be super stressful. You are a busy professional. Summer is coming to an end. You feel the pressures, the last quarter goals of 2011 are at the forefront of your mind. The new school year is close, and the nervous tension that comes with these pressures can hit a family and business hard. Not only do you have your usual duties, but kids can also feel the anxieties of starting a new year, which can impact your business and personal life. Stress can build up. So, what to do?
While the causes can be something other than work stress, here are the most common symptoms and early signs of stress:
- Apathy
- Anger/irritability
- Negativism/cynicism
- Low morale
- Boredom
- Anxiety
- Frustration
- Fatigue
- Alienation
- Physical symptoms
- Absenteeism
But how do I beat stress and reduce signs of it, you ask? Here are 4 tips on how to effectively do it:
1. Delete, delegate, deposit
Take 5-10 minutes at the beginning of your day to clear your desk , work-space, or living space. Doing so might help alleviate the sense of losing control that comes from having too much clutter. Keep your goals S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, tangible) helps maintain focus and control in your life.
2. Talk it out
Sometimes the best opportunity to reduce stress is to simply share your thoughts with someone, either someone close to you or a trained therapist to help you work through the changes. Stress counselling can help tremendously.
3. Laugh or allow yourself to smile
Finding humour in life helps us when we start to take things too seriously. Share a joke, or a funny story, or watch stand-up comedies.
4. Change the situation
Remember the 4 A’s:
a) Avoid
b) Alter
c) Adapt
d) Accept.
If you remember the 4 A’s when it comes to stress, it might help you work through it.
Staying positive in this modern life is an important act for us all to practice. Coping with stress isn’t easy, but with a little effort, you will be back on the road to emotional wellness and well-being!
Interested in learning more about coaching or therapy? Contact us today.
References:
Meyer,P. J. (2011). LMI Canada Inc: Personal Leadership, “Living with Purpose”. http://www.lmicanada.ca/EPL.aspx
What Therapy Is, and Is Not.
How do you feel about therapy? Is it something that is scary for you, or something you expect to solve or your problems? Or is it something you see as a tool for exploring yourself? Unfortunately, many people don’t have an accurate picture of what psychotherapy and counseling are all about and what they can actually get from it. Consequentially, there are clients who, due to their false expectations, just give up from therapy after one or two sessions. On the other hand, there are therapists who simply don’t provide what they should provide for their clients.
For these reasons, we want to clarify what therapy is, and is not. What can you expect from psychotherapy and what it should provide? Learning this will help you get the most out of your counseling sessions and have realistic expectations. Additionally, you’ll be able to recognize if you should, maybe, change your therapist.
Here is an extraordinarily helpful article on this matter: https://blogs.psychcentral.com/caregivers/2016/08/what-therapy-is-is-not-10-considerations/. Tamara Hill shares some useful guidelines on what characterizes good therapy, as well as what therapy shouldn’t be.
Therapy is…
- Teamwork and partnership
- Open
- Supportive
- Equal but with professional boundaries
- Authentic
Therapy is Not…
- Competitive
- Defensive
- Exploitative
- Suffocating
- Forceful
The psychotherapeutic process almost always includes change, and change can be uncomfortable. Even if you find yourself falling into some of the last 5 behaviors, don’t worry; sometimes, these feelings are normal for certain stages in psychotherapy. A good therapist will work with you on your feelings and you’ll together try to find where they’re coming from. As long as it’s not your permanent view or constant behavior on your sessions, there is no reason for serious concerns.
Lastly, Rollo May sums up what therapy is and is not nicely:
“Therapy isn’t curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human. Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, ‘This is me and the world be damned!’ Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society – Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.”
– Rollo May
Interested in learning more about coaching or therapy? Contact us today.
Personal Development – Part 1
We are inundated with information on a daily basis. Our five senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch are frequently stimulated. The process of sensation and perception work hard. Grossberg, S. (2010) explains that we experience the world as a whole. Although we do have much to interpret in terms of incoming information, we somehow integrate this into unified moments of conscious experience that cohere together. Because of the apparent unity and coherence of our awareness, we can develop a sense of self. As a result, over time, it gradually matures with our experiences of the world. This capacity lies at the heart of our ability to function as intelligent beings.
Alright, but how does sensation and perception tie into personal development? Moreover, what is personal development? However, is it possible to become overwhelmed with information and lose sight of what you’re really trying to achieve? In other words, can our senses get lost in the 6-foot waves the sea of life can create? I suggest sailing with personal/professional development locked in your GPS[1].
But back to the question – how do you define personal development?
Understanding Personal Development
Shortland, S. (2010) provides a brief distinction between training and development.
“For example, training typically involves short-term methods for skills acquisition, while competency development involves understanding and promulgating appropriate behaviours in particular settings (Roberts, 2005)… ‘Development’ provides a broader context implying a longer-term and ongoing (Paechter, 1996) approach. It may refer to professional (work environment) and/or personal development in a lifelong learning context (Nicholls, 2000). Further, it is typically carried out in a structured manner via continuous review, evaluation, planning and implementation (D’Andrea & Gosling, 2001). Thus, individuals form their own personal judgements and take responsibility for them over the long term” (Shortland, S., 2010).
But what does all of this mean? Let me ask you: what does it mean to you? How often do you take the time to filter information coming in, allowing yourself to selectively choose what can influence you? Moreover, have you ever had the courage to look within and link your life to your attitudes and behaviours? Are you able to identify at least 1 area you could tweak? The American Society for Training and Development released that $126 Billion was spent on Employee Learning and Development in 2009; are and should YOU be part of the success story?
Challenge your emotions. Raise your success. Accept only the best for your life. Start today, and stop giving yourself excuses.
Stay tuned for Part 2 on The Process of Development.
Interested in learning more about coaching or therapy? Contact us today.
References
Grossberg, S.(2010). Causality, Meaningful Complexity and Embodied Cognition. (1st ed.). New York (NY): Springer.
Shortland, S.(2010). Feedback within peer observation: continuing professional development and unexpected consequences. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 47(3), 295-304.
[1] Conveniently enough, LMI Canada Inc. has their own GPS; Goal Planning Sheets in their suite of tools.
Meditation
Taking care of our mental health is as important as taking care of our physical health. Hundreds of studies are constantly proving the extreme benefits of daily meditation to our mental and physical health. They show that just 15 minutes a day of sitting still and watching your thoughts stroll by while focusing on your breathing can make wonders for you! Here are some examples of the amazing benefits meditation can bring.
Meditation Boosts Your Health and Positively Changes Your Brain
Numerous scientists have found that mindfulness meditation has a significantly positive effect on our brain and immune system. It can also decrease pain and lower inflammations at the cellular level. Additionally, scientists noticed some physical changes in the brains of people who meditate regularly. For example, they found that these patients experience increased cortical thickness and growth of grey matter, which is connected with better focus and memory. Also, these individuals have a larger volume of areas in their brain that are related to emotional regulation and self-control.
Meditation Brings Positive Emotions and Improves Mental Health
We all want to be happy. Luckily, meditation can help us achieve that goal. Studies have shown that it can decrease anxiety and depression, as well as lower everyday stress we’re experiencing. Additionally, it brings positive emotions, like joy and calmness. There are also “loving-kindness” types of meditation, which bring feelings of warm love and fulfillment.
Meditation Betters Your Social Life
Although meditation is (usually) an alone activity, it actually increases your sense of connection to others. This happens because meditating can enhance your emotional intelligence and make you more compassionate. Additionally, it can make you more introspective and more in control of your emotions, which all appears attractive to others, making you a desirable individual for connection (friendship, romantic relationship etc.).
Interested in learning more about coaching or therapy? Contact us today.
References:
Fredrickson, B. L., Cohn, M. A., Coffey, K. A., Pek, J., & Finkel, S. M. (2008). Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources. Journal of personality and social psychology, 95(5), 1045. Online HERE
Miller, J. J., Fletcher, K., & Kabat-Zinn, J. (1995). Three-year follow-up and clinical implications of a mindfulness meditation-based stress reduction intervention in the treatment of anxiety disorders. General hospital psychiatry, 17(3), 192-200. Online HERE
Tang, Y. Y., Ma, Y., Wang, J., Fan, Y., Feng, S., Lu, Q., … & Posner, M. I. (2007). Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation. Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences, 104(43), 17152-17156. Online HERE
Seppälä, E. (2013). 20 Scientific Reasons to Start Meditating Today. Psychology Today. Online HERE