Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash
When you look at the next month, quarter, or year, do you have a word or specific focus in mind for your activity? You know that I have a word (or words) for each year, and often they mean different things at the end of the year than they did at the beginning.
My word for 2022 is “Nurture.” This year’s word is hard for me, and it might have made you cringe a little bit too! For leaders, we can often fall into the “workaholic” category. We can get caught a misshapen view of what it means to serve, thus putting our own well being to the side so regularly that it becomes habit, and our boundary of saying no becomes almost non-existent.
In meditating on nurture, it occurred to me that nurture is supported by self-control and love. Ouch again. Since I haven’t been nurturing myself well, I have not shown self-control nor have I shown myself love. So I’m starting 2022 with a focus on how I can nourish myself emotionally, physically, and spiritually (ways of demonstrating these two bits of nurture). I know that if I do this in the “fair to good” category, I’ll be a better coach, friend, and family member. I’ll have the bandwidth to be open and flexible to changes that I can’t control, and won’t hold on to things that suck my energy and don’t bring me joy.
Already I’ve realized that my focus for the year will require that I make some hard decisions, ones that other people won’t understand or be pleased with. I’m going to be bowing out of activities that suck the life out of me and choosing to focus more energy on developing leaders who want to reach their full potential.
Questions to ponder:
Where are you putting your focus this year?
In what ways do you want to reach higher and be more self-actualized?
What do you need to cull that may be uncomfortable and/or difficult?
Stay curious friends!
Make sure you’re listening to season one of the Dream Big Authentic Leadership podcast, found on Apple, Google, Spotify, and Stitcher.
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