Chapter 6: Self-Leadership

Self-Leadership is having a developed sense of who you are, what you can do, where you are going coupled with the ability to influence your communication, emotions, and behavior on the way to getting there (Bryant, Kazan 2012).

People who are successful have one thing in common, it is self-leadership. Self-leaded people are always aware of their own self and their surroundings. They never miss an opportunity. Self-leadership can impact your daily life, health, and career. People always brag about motivation and inspiration. Motivation is needed for everyone indeed. But how? A powerful speech or a story of success may motivate you for a short period of time. Eventually, it will fade away after a day to two. You need self-motivation that will not extinguish easily. Self-leaded people are always self-motivated.

Maybe you want to be a leader, a manager, a good spouse or a good child. Nobody but you can make it happen. You need to influence yourself to achieve your objectives. If you can manage yourself, you can manage everything else in this world. Leading yourself means taking control over your feeling and reactions. John C. Maxwell says “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it”. Getting control over your reactions can make a whole lot of change in your life. It is possible by developing self-leadership within you.

Things that a self-leader has-

• Self-awareness
• Self-Motivation
• Self-commitment
• Self-confidence
• Self-efficacy
• Emotional Intelligence
• Self-awareness: is about knowing yourself. Who are you, what are your values and what do you want to achieve in your life? Having a clear picture of the things you like and things you hate. Self-awareness makes you strong.
• Self-motivation: means influencing yourself out of your own interest. For that, you will not need any outside force. In most of the cases, people need outside pressure to do something. This is why procrastination comes in our mind. Self-motivation can get you up in the morning even if you do not have the fear of being late at the office or class.
• Self-commitment: is about being pledged for the promises you make to yourself. Strong commitment towards you own desire can help you reach the destination faster. Self-commitment improves the ability to ace both in career and personal life.
• Self-efficacy: Self-efficacy is one's belief in their own ability and skills to accomplish something. The sense of self-efficacy can play a major role in their success.

Self-confidence works like a muscle. The more you use it the better it will get over the span of time.

According to Barrie Davenport -

"Low self-confidence isn't a life sentence. Self-confidence can be learned, practiced, and mastered--just like any other skill. Once you master it, everything in your life will change for the better."

Here are some tips to boost your self-confidence-

• Learn to accept what you can’t change: There are some things that we cannot change. Don’t let those things affect you. For instance, if you are short in size, you feel bad about it. Studies show that for numerous reasons short people have less self-confidence than tall people. If only those short people could accept the reality those study result could be different. Because there are so many people who reached the pinnacle of success with the height of below average. So accept that you are short or any other lacking that you have, accept it and focus on your strength rather than the weakness.
• Avoid negative self-talk: Let me give you a real-life example, in a class when a professor approaches to ask a question before the class, some of the students talk to themselves and pray so that the teacher ask it someone else but them. Even before asking the actual question, they’ll be like, ooh…. Don’t ask me, I don’t know the answer. This is what we call negative self-talk. There are enormous people around you who can say that you cannot do it and you don’t have the ability to control them. The only person you can control is you so, don’t let yourself say that “I can’t do it”.

Pour some positive talks inside you before doing something that requires self-confidence. Just like the legendary boxer Muhammad Ali said before the championship match-

“I am the greatest”

• Your past does not equal your future: Your future should not be bothered by your past. Your past has nothing to do with the future. Always remember that your present defines your future not the past. So before facing a job interview or giving a speech remember that nobody cares that you failed on something. They only care about what you are doing right now. So don’t let your past hold you back, forget all the failure and look forward to success.
• Be prepared: Self-confidence tends to grow when you are prepared. So try your best to gather knowledge about your field of work. Know what you are going to do and what possible obstacles may come.
• Try to remove the fear of failure: Most people lose their self-confidence when feeling scared of the failure. Failure is not the end of the world. It’s just another lesson for you. The more you fail the more you learn. Failure here does not mean
• Practice exhibiting confidence through your body language: Study reveal that practicing certain power poses can increase confidence. There are other body language as well that can help to increase confidence in a person.
  • Power Poses
  • Smile
  • Make eye contact and keep it
  • Have a strong handshake
  • Don't fidget
  • Halt before you talk
  • Listen carefully
  • Dress well
  • Exercise
  • Remember the good times

Lastly to boost your self-confidence always remember that mistakes are inevitable. Nobody is perfect, so don’t try to perfect try to be yourself.