Why taking action isn’t always the right thing to do and what needs to happen first
Action is great… when it’s aligned.
What do I mean by aligned?
Aligned with your vision, your goals and your preferences. Aligned with your talents, your purpose and your passions. Aligned with your desired lifestyle, the impact you want to make and the legacy you want to leave.
How can you get to this alignment?
Your action becomes aligned when it’s inspired by
· A Self-Empowering Mindset & Heartset
· Your Distinctive Uniqueness
· A Body- & Energy-Conscious Presence.
And it becomes effective (in the desired direction) when it’s inspired by all these components.
Self-Empowering Mindset & Heartset:
No one can empower you but yourself. Self-empowerment is about connecting with the power that’s already inside of you. This requires not only the right mindset but also a mind that’s led by the heart. Because while our mind is incredibly potent, our mind can also keep us smaller than we really are. The power of the mind is only magnified if we combine it with the heart.
Your Distinctive Uniqueness
You came to this Earth equipped with specific talents and abilities, which you complemented with skills and competencies, your unique stories and experiences, and your desires and expectations of what you want from your life, both personally and professionally.
We are all different for a reason, and we need to respect our calling, which is usually closely related to our passions.
When we disregard our desires and choose a career path that’s unaligned with our Distinctive Uniqueness (e.g., because we allowed ourselves to be talked into studying law though deep down, we wanted to be a performing artist), this rarely leads to success (how do we even define success??) and certainly not a satisfactory life.
So, if you currently feel “out of place” or just not fulfilled, maybe it’s time to do some soul searching and dig a little deeper. By the way, Human Design can help with that, too… We are “designed” for certain roles, so to speak. (Ask me if you don’t know what Human Design is.)
Body- & Energy-Conscious Presence
Business or leader presence is about many things, and you need a certain presence to gain positive visibility and build trust. If you read my article Master Your Executive Presence – But How? in The Corporate Magazine or have heard me talk about this on podcasts or at events, you know what I’m talking about.
In business, we often neglect an important fact: Your energy speaks louder than your words, and it speaks faster than your words. You may have heard that you have 7 seconds to make a first impression… when in reality it’s only 0.07 seconds. Because it takes a mere 0.07 seconds for our brains to figure out whether we can trust someone. This is our automatic survival mechanism.
Your energy also informs your body language, which again overrides your words if the two are not aligned.
This is why I teach my clients to use a more Body- & Energy-Conscious Presence during meetings, presentations, and negotiations. A basic preparation routine can exponentially enhance your perceived presence and also help you feel more confident. In my book Speak up, Stand out and Shine, I share some tools that can help.
Once you master these 3 pillars of my Powerful Leadership Transformation (PLT)™ framework, what you get is Inspired & Effective Action, which constitutes the 4th pillar.
This is what’s the fundament of my one-on-one coaching programs, where we combine it with leadership skills development, Conversational Intelligence (C-IQ) and other relevant resources, depending on each client’s specific needs.
Why? – Because when you master these 4 pillars, your action is aligned. Aligned action gives you the desired results.