Leadership starts with You: How to develop Your Personal Power

To develop your Social and Emotional Skills, the very first step is to strengthen your emotional Self-awareness; an accurate self-assessment is vital.

Leadership starts within yourself; developing your self-confidence is critical. 

"When you have self-confidence, it's not about how others see you, it's about how you see yourself.” Paramahamsa Vishwananda

Because of the education you received, you have probably developed a sense of value fluctuating according to the results: you are happy when things go well and you feel miserable when times get tough. 

Personal power is the opposite of helplessness, hopelessness and self-doubt. It is about valuing yourself and feeling worthy regardless of the results; a sense of self-confidence and inner knowing that you can meet life’s challenges and live the life you choose, having faith in yourself, in life and in your ability to solve problems and succeed. 

This means defining yourself from inside out rather than being defined from the outside on the basis of diplomas, roles and/or other people’s opinions. In other words, it is a calm inner conviction about who you are and your abilities. This also means knowing what you want and going after it by making things happen and being able to distinguish between the things you can control and the ones you cannot (and having faith).

Personal power is super important because it unleashes your ability to convey ideas and solutions in an assured manner. Lack of personal power translates in feeling powerless and lacking confidence in your own self-judgment and abilities. In this case, you keep questioning yourself, you avoid getting to the heart of the problem with people and find it very hard to have difficult conversations and speaking the truth sincerely, quietly, assertively, appropriately. In general, because of this you avoid any confrontation, you are unable to set boundaries and/or demand respect from others and you avoid taking risks or chances and you will never achieve anything in life. 

If this is the case there are some development tips that can be very helpful. 

First of all, remember that feeling is the secret: your outer reality reflects your inner reality, and nothing like successes boost self-confidence. For this reason, as an exercise, make a list of all your successes and all the things you accomplished in your life and recapture these feelings. Moreover, identify all the things you excel at and tap into the emotions/feelings associated. 

Be aware of the language you use and never allow yourself to use weak language anymore. Remember that language tells people how to treat you. How you speak is important. Choose your words carefully. Avoid language that lacks power. Become aware of allowing interruptions, stop saying “sorry” so frequently and stop the uptalk (rising the inflection of your voice at the end).

To help yourself, you can take an assertiveness course or read about it. Learn to set and keep boundaries. Read about stoicism. Move on from failures and envision yourself smart and strong and stop trying to control everything. Have faith in yourself and in life. 

In general, be aware of all the circumstances you put yourself down through a daily self-analysis. Examine the causes of your lack of self-confidence or personal power: 

• is it about a lack of skills? If so, train;
• is it about a lack of experience? If so, find a Social and Emotional Intelligence certified Coach. 

Begin with a self-assessment online to identify your social and emotional intelligence strengths and development opportunities. Self-Awareness is the first step to Self-Mastery. Start here!

“Social and Emotional Intelligence (SEI) is the ability to be aware of your own emotions, and those of others, in the moment, and to use that information to manage ourselves and our relationships.” ―The Institute for Social and Emotional Intelligence