How to improve self-esteem and self-leadership?

There is a lot of talk about leadership, a fundamental skill not only for the world of work, but also for the personal one. It is a desired skill, very valuable in these times but, to be developed, it is necessary to have two things: self-esteem and leadership.

Who is not capable of leading his own life, it will be very difficult for him to do so with other people. Nor will he own his life, which will make him a victim of circumstances, emotionally dependent on his context and feeling that he can do little or nothing.

Self-leadership has a lot to do with achieving goals, feats that make us perceive ourselves as more effective people and, therefore, develop better self-esteem of us. We are going to see how to improve self-esteem and, especially, self-leadership.

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What are self-esteem and leadership?

In recent times, the word “leadership” has been mentioned so many times that it is surprising that it has not been worn out. It is very recurrent in the workplace to talk about team management, understanding leadership as the ability to direct and motivate other people. But, before addressing other people, we must know how to address ourselves, control our emotions and regulate our behavior. We must perfect self-leadership.

Self leadership can be defined as the ability to intentionally and consciously influence one's own thoughts, emotions and behaviors in order to achieve goals that we have proposed. It is directing and redirecting one's own life, building the present and the future, taking the helm and not deviating from the course. It is owning our own lives. This ability feeds on a set of psychological elements that, if perfected and improved, it increases the probability of achieving the objectives, even with a certain limitation of resources and uncertainty.

It should be noted that self-leadership is strongly related to emotional intelligence, specifically with the intrapersonal type. This is so because it requires significant emotional management and regulation, in addition to being aware of and knowing our strengths and weaknesses, and using that information for our own benefit. Self-leadership is nurtured by skills such as persistence, maintaining motivation, discipline and tenacity.

The main consequence of having good self-leadership is personal empowerment. Knowing how to lead ourselves implies greater control of our lives, avoiding excesses and sacrificing ourselves to succeed, which will bring us satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness. Self-leadership involves making decisions independently, keeping us focused on achieving personal goals. Feeling that we are being constant and succeeding in what we have set out to do has an impact on greater emotional well-being, personal growth, greater security and self-confidence.

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The 5 A's of self-leadership

It is said that there are five major psychological processes that influence self-leadership and that, in turn, are influenced by this same capacity. These five processes are known as the 5 A's of self-leadership.

1. self knowledge

Self-awareness can be defined as the ability to recognize and detect our own emotions and thoughts, understanding how they affect us and what consequences they imply on our behavior. In addition, this ability implies understanding and knowing the personal resources we have, our strengths, weaknesses and limitations.

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2. Autonomy

Autonomy is the ability of people to set own priorities and goals independently. It implies having the sufficient capacity to form personal criteria, make decisions and assume responsibility for our actions.

3. Self-management

self management is the ability to regulate emotions, behaviors and own resources to direct them towards a proposed goal. This psychological process is fundamental in self-leadership, since it implies being able to analyze and control actions without external help and readjust them if the situation so requires.

4. Self motivation

Self-motivation is the ability to influence one's own state of mind, as well as being persistent enough to maintain an appropriate emotional state to achieve the goal we have set for ourselves. We could say that it is made up of initiative, commitment to objectives, will, achievement orientation and optimism.

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5. Self-esteem

And last but not least, we have self-esteem. It is commonly defined as the set of perceptions, evaluations and evaluations that an individual makes of himself in terms of value, way of being and qualities.

The relationship between self-esteem and self-leadership is bidirectional. If we have good self-esteem, we will feel more motivated and oriented to achieve our personal goals by the mere fact of valuing ourselves more and feeling that we are capable of achieving them. In turn, if we are people with this capacity for self-regulation, we will feel satisfied with everything we have achieved and are achieving and, consequently, our self-esteem will increase.

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Strategies to improve self-esteem and self-leadership

The strategies that we are going to see next are mainly aimed at improving self-leadership, although many of them, if applied to our lives, will increase our self-esteem.

Having good self-leadership has a positive impact on our lives, both personally and at work, being a source of well-being by feeling that we are competent and regulated people. Training it is possible and below we see how to enhance self-leadership:

1. know oneself

It is essential to know oneself to develop good self-leadership. We must be aware of our strengths and weaknesses in order to know which skills or aptitudes we have more developed and which ones we should perfect. To do this, we can think about those situations in which we believe we act correctly and competently and those in which we believe not so much.

We can also ask people close to us to evaluate us, to tell us what they think our strengths and weaknesses are or what they think we excel at. By doing this, we can get an idea of ​​what resources we have and what our limitations are.

All this It will help us to be realistic when setting a goal proposing something affordable but, also, that is ambitious enough to feel that we are achieving something as a result of our effort and tenacity.

2. Perfect our weak points

Once the limitations and weak points have been identified, it is time to work on them. It is best to work from the information we have obtained from these qualities. It is a learning exercise, so we must look for possible activities or tasks that can improve these weak points.

If among those weak points are problems to interact with others, it is essential to work on them because they influence both self-esteem and self-leadership. We can resort to various resources: go to a professional specialized in training in social skills or sign up for group activities such as theater, team sports, associations...

3. draw a wheel of life

The Wheel of Life is a classic in the repertoire of personal growth tools. Fundamental to boosting our self-esteem and self-leadership, it basically consists of drawing a circle and dividing it into ten sections, although this number is only a guideline.

Each section represents an area to change or improve our lives and, once chosen, we must prioritize them by assigning them a number according to the priority or importance that we believe they have. Using this, we analyze our present and focus on the future.

4. To establish objectives

Self-leadership doesn't just happen. Just as muscles must be trained so as not to atrophy, self-leadership is improved by setting increasingly ambitious goals according to our abilities. Ambitious does not mean that they have to be extremely difficult, but that serve us to improve as individuals and feel that we are advancing.

Within a certain ambition, the objectives must be realistic, achievable by putting in a little more effort than we used to put in before and, also, that are easy to measure and evaluate in order to check if we are really, or not, regulating our volitions and achieving what we have proposed.

It is highly recommended to break down the final objectives into short, medium and long term objectives. By managing to meet more affordable goals, small but still requiring effort, our self-esteem it will be increased by feeling that we are achieving it and that we are getting closer and closer to the final goal.

5. develop habits

Self-leadership is nurtured by habits. At first it is normal for us to find it difficult to do something, but once we have established it as a habit that we do by inertia, it will be easy for us to start doing it. The development and maintenance of self-discipline is a very positive aspect, something that will make us value ourselves more and, consequently, have greater self-esteem.

6. Flexibility and relaxation

It should not be thought that self-leadership is synonymous with working, working and working more. It is one thing to make an effort and be a worker, focused on obtaining a specific goal or achievement, and quite another to exhaust yourself to the limit thinking that the maximum sacrifice always pays off. It is not like this. Being more tired, physically and mentally, will only make us make worse decisions in the long run. This is why it is so important to know how to rest when you play.

Some people have a hard time getting down to work with one of their obligations but, once they have started, it can also happen that they find it very difficult to stop. They spend hours and hours glued to it, ignoring what is happening around them and trying to fight off fatigue. Not the best way to be productive, because the more tired we are the worse we perform.

When we see that we are not in the best state, it is best to stop and take a well-deserved rest. Of course, you also have to know how to stop, respecting the time that we have set for pause. It is one thing to stop to regain energy and another is to rest more than necessary and lose concentration.

7. Check and readjust

Once in a while we will have to monitor and evaluate how our progress is taking place. In case we see that we are deviating a little from the path, it is up to us to carry out the pertinent adjustments to get it back on track. It is essential that, from time to time, we analyze the progress and evaluate how we feel, making the necessary changes to the initial planning to redirect ourselves to our goals.

8. Evaluate both the process and the result

Do not settle for reaching the goal. Like any path, this will have been one full of learning and lessons to apply for the future.. The goal is the end of the road, the final evidence that we have been self-directed people and that we have known how to move forward, something that will undoubtedly feed our self-esteem. Valuing the process is almost as important or more important than the result itself.

We must extract the possible learnings and lessons that the road has brought us, be it long or short, be it easy or be difficult, in order to extrapolate them to future paths that we want to travel towards goals that we want to achieve in the future. future. To do this exercise of introspection and contemplation of how much we have achieved will help us feel better about ourselves, seeing that we are capable of much.

Are you interested in enhancing your self-leadership and self-esteem?

Do you want to improve your self-esteem and self-leadership with our 8-week MBSR programs or also in special individual sessions? Get in contact with us.

At Happy Mind we offer Mindfulness courses for groups and in individual sessions taught by a psychologist and certified instructor in Mindfulness.