Amplifying what is great within you…
We all have times when we find it harder to get going, when things are a bit more of a slog, and when we find we’re procrastinating more than usual – don’t we?! It can be for many reasons, but usually we’ve just lost sight of who we want to be when we’re at our best. Every time I’ve lost my way a bit with my daily routines and habits, and I’m feeling slightly out of kilter, I come back to listen to Brendon Burchard’s ‘Motivation Manifesto’ on my morning walk. The energy it gives me is infectious and I end up marching round with real purpose, rather than dawdling, which has its’s place too sometimes.
It encourages me to come back to the 3 words I use to remind me how I want to be – my clarity words. For me, these are integral to my purpose statement. My why is quite simply to support and inspire others (and myself!) to be our best-selves, and my clarity words remind me how I want to show up to do this – with optimism, courage and compassion or empathy (still deciding!). I don’t know whether you’ve ever tried an exercise of choosing your values – this is a similar exercise where you think about 3 words that describe you when you are at your best. How do you behave when others aren’t watching and you are ‘in flow’? How would others describe your behaviour when you’re at your best? A useful way is to ask those closest to you both at work and home. The important thing is that these words are action words, behaviours, rather than values per-se. Values can be turned into verbs, of course. I found I had lots of words I wanted to incorporate and the more I thought about it, the more possible it was for me to group these words under the heading of one or the other.
Another useful way of thinking about them is what behaviours sometimes go when we flag? What do we want to remind ourselves that we need to boost when things are harder, as they inevitably are sometimes. As Brendon says, amplifying what is great within us will accelerate us faster than fixing what we think limits us. Reminding ourselves of how we behave when we’re at our best can help us during those more difficult times. My optimism can dissipate, my empathy dips when I’m so focused upon the task rather than the impact on those around me, and I’ve needed to remind myself that I am courageous at times when I’ve been uncertain about things, and the imposter has tried his way in…
So here’s to amplifying what is great within us! Having that CLARITY over our greatness, being self-aware enough to recognise it and harness it is the first step – then we need to regularly remind ourselves of how we want to show up in order to serve those around us as best we can. Of course we can’t be oblivious to the limits we have, but we can use our ‘superpowers’, the behaviours that make us great to help us overcome obstacles and give ourselves that boost and acceleration in our lives when we need it most.
Reflections:
What am I DOing when I’m at my best – how am I behaving?
How do I behave when others aren’t watching and I’m ‘in flow’?
How would others describe my behaviour when I’m at my best?
Which of those behaviours sometimes ‘goes’ when I’m flagging, under pressure or preoccupied?
What 3 words describe me when I’m at my best?
How can I remind myself of these behaviours and draw on them when I really need to?