How to Improve Your Life Through Self-Leadership

What is self-leadership?

It’s the ability to live as an emotionally mature adult, taking charge of your beliefs, emotions, and actions. It's about leaving behind the limitations and patterns of childhood wounds and stepping into a more empowered, self-directed approach to life.

Why does this matter?

Self-leadership is a crucial skill that will improve every area of your life.

It's the foundation for all personal growth. Meaning, your life won't improve without it. It leads to improved decision-making, emotional well-being, stronger relationships, self-confidence, and success in both your personal and professional life.

The problem is, none of us are born embracing self-leadership.

In fact, we’re born embracing the exact opposite.

As babies, we can not fend for ourselves. We are dependent on others for all of our needs, even emotional regulation. As kids, we learn a little bit more about how to take care of ourselves, but when we encounter a problem, we still expect someone else to come solve it for us.

As adults, we think we grow out of this. 

The truth is, we have the same brains with many of the same patterns from when we were kids.

Self-leadership is learning to notice “kid logic” and trade it for healthy “adult logic”.

If you don’t pay careful attention to these patterns you risk: stunted personal growth, unhealthy relationships, poor decision-making, chronic emotional distress, lack of resilience, unfulfilled potential, and even negatively impacting those around you.

It's important to remember that we all come at this from different stages.

It's not a question of "if" you practice kid logic. We all use kid logic. Give yourself some empathy and grace. Strive to take small steps toward self-leadership and operating out of that healthy, adult logic.

6 Steps to Embrace Self-Leadership

1.Examine and Choose Beliefs That Serve Your Growth

Take time to reflect on your beliefs about yourself and the world.

Consciously select the ones that support your personal growth and well-being. Investigate the story you’re telling yourself by asking, "Am I telling myself a good story? Am I telling myself a true story?" Any event can be interpreted in dozens of different ways.

You have the power to choose an empowering view. 

2.Healthily Communicate Your Wants, Desires, and Needs

Emotional maturity is knowing what you want or need and then having the capacity to ask for it in a healthy way. Take responsibility to understand your inner world. Practice expressing your needs and desires assertively, without resorting to passive-aggressive or demanding behavior. 

3.Safely Express Your Emotions 

Learn to feel and express your emotions - sadness, anger, joy, fear - in a manner that doesn't hurt you or anyone else. Allow yourself to process emotions while maintaining healthy boundaries.

4.Practice Self-compassion and Tenderness Towards Your Weaknesses

Treat yourself with kindness and understanding, especially when it comes to your weaknesses or areas of growth. Extend that same compassion to others. Emotional maturity is having tenderness towards yourself and others, especially when it comes to those weaknesses or the things that are still in process in our lives.

5.Engage With Your Feelings Without Being Controlled By Them

Develop the capacity to feel your own emotions and those of others without getting enmeshed or overwhelmed by them.

Recognize that emotions provide valuable information, but they shouldn't dictate all your decisions. We want to be holistic in terms of the connection we have with our whole being, but we also want healthy detachment from those feelings, so we don't get absorbed into or controlled by them.

6.Explore the Deeper Root Feelings Beneath Surface-Level Emotions

Too often, we take feelings at face value.

Take the time to identify and understand the deeper feelings that may lie beneath more apparent emotions like anxiety, anger, or sadness. A marker of emotional maturity is the ability to look at the different layers of a feeling and dive a little bit deeper into that subterranean feeling underneath.

By focusing on these six steps, you can develop the self-leadership skills you need to create a more positive, fulfilling life.

Remember, self-leadership is an ongoing process.

It's essential to be patient and compassionate with yourself as you work on these areas of growth.

With dedication and practice, you can break free from the limitations of kid logic and embrace a life of emotional maturity, resilience, and purpose.

Thanks for reading,

Mike Foster