Perceived Leadership

How do some folks always seem to know where they’re going? Are you one of them?

We learn in school the ease of having our time and our next steps arranged by someone else’s plan. Our limited decisions decide our rewards and failures. So we feel we’re some part of the system. Yet, through necessity we have no real controlling decisions. We learn perceived leadership that has no real risk and no real power.

Following a preset path is great if it goes where you want to end up. It’s not so great when we find ourselves on a path leading to somewhere we don’t really belong. Unfortunately, no one tells us when to switch over to our own power.

7 Ways to Carve a Path to the Future of Your Dreams

We graduate as leaders who might be excellent at following the larger plan. But there’s no official transition from doing that to carving our own path. Some of us jump in naturally and start walking. Some us follow what’s laid before us until we find ourselves out of a job. It’s easy to be swept along without ever owning our decisions, but that’s a risky business and ultimately not fulfilling.

Here are 7 ways to carve your own path to the future of your dreams starting now.

1. Have a purpose. It’s powerful and attractive to have a defining direction. Without a purpose, circumstances decide where and how you land. The wind or the world can blow you anywhere. When every road leads to nowhere, who bothers to choose?
2. Get determined. It’s your life. Breathe for it. Eat for it. Keep the folks who support you close. Disregard those who shoot you down.
3. Speak for yourself. Speak with care and carefully, but say what you mean as clearly as you know how. Don’t discount what you’re saying. Say the guy was wrong, even a jerk, if you solidly think so. Tell the real story — respectfully — without fear of how you might look. Stand for what you think by saying it out loud.
4. Have a strategy. Char said it well, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Wishes are granted. If you’re wishing, you want someone else in control.
5. Hold your own hand. Be your own teacher. Don’t stop your progress until someone has time to show you how. Plan a way to what you need to know. Do the research. Write your own lesson. Then do the homework. That’s incredible power.
6. Pay attention to your intuition and instincts. You years of experience didn’t all get recorded as words. Some things your body knows. Trust that your post decisions have taught you how to respond to those now.
7. Decide what success looks like to you. Seek out opinions and value them for exactly what they’re worth. You’ll always have more experience and more information about being you than anyone else can know.

It’s totally in our power to reach our dreams and our destiny — we can start on our way right here and right now. We can turn off the voices that tell us what we’re not . . . , what we should . . . , who’s supposed to . . . they’re not in charge of what we do with our lives. I offer this bit of wisdom to their noise.

My future is at the end of the path that I follow. I’ll carve it myself.

What do you need to decide to start toward your future?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Take charge. It’s not as hard as you might think. Work with Liz!!