Self-Leadership: 5 ways to develop the art of steering your destiny
What do you need to feel that you are driving your own destiny?
What do you need to inspire, become aware of or make up your mind in order to drive the realisation of your aspirations or enable your dreams? What is the best way to simply do what you need to do in each moment with a sense of purpose, a sense of presence and confidence? First learn to breathe, then train your heart, then discover your motives and values. Find meaning in what you do and don’t forget to use your intelligence!1. Learn how to breathe
“Moving air relaxes and refreshes
Like an internal massage and shower.”
Richard P. Brown
Considering all the automatic functions of our body, the one which can easily be controlled voluntarily is the breath. Through breathing you can find balance, either to energise yourself or to calm down.
A few minutes of controlled breathing can provide you with calm and allow you to think more clearly or act more appropriately.
Until you learn how to breathe, sing, because singing allows you a type of breathing that stimulates a system in your brain that accompanies states of relaxation and tranquillity. As the popular saying goes, “He who sings, chants away all evils”..
2. Train your heart
“If people fix their hair every day,
why not the heart?”
Provérbio Chinês
The influence that thoughts of appreciation, evoking positive memories (love, joy, calm, appreciation, etc.) have on the heart rhythm (cardiac coherence or regularity) has been demonstrated, as has the impact that negative emotions (frustration, anger, sadness and even banal worries) produce on cardiac irregularity or incoherence.
Train your attention to better identify your emotions; evoke memories or thoughts that create meaning or well-being for you, so that you are better prepared to deal with the more or less positive circumstances in your life.
3. Find your “why”
“Whoever has a why endures any how.”
Nietzsche
Find out what drives or blocks your will to act. The same task can have a completely different meaning for two people. For one mason, his work is nothing more than breaking stone, but for another, the same activity may consist of building a cathedral.
For one person, his life has meaning as long as he can have the time and conditions to provide a good life for his family, have security and tranquillity, and everything he does is seen under these lenses and driven by these motives, while for another what drives him to act is the possibility of having ascendancy and influence over others, obtaining status or settling accounts with all forms of injustice or ethical deviations.
Whatever your causes, or your reasons for acting, discover them so that they become your allies in ‘enduring’ any ‘how’.
4. Find meaning in what you do
“It is part of human freedom
– the choice of attitude you should adopt –
to decide their own path.”
Vitor Frankl
Victor Frankl was a psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor who revealed the power of “having a meaning in life”. This could lie in the will to survive to find a loved one, to honour the victims, to do justice, or just to keep one’s eyes on those one loves as the only way to bear the worst of situations or sufferings.
This example shows an extreme life situation, but in your life you will often need to look not only at the why that drives you, but look at the “what for”.
You can find your “what for” in small, unspectacular activities, in everyday life, or by discovering your personal mission which gives meaning to what you do.
5. Use your intelligence
“Quality is never an accident;
It is always the result of an effort of intelligence.”
John Ruskin
Although the effect of stress diminishes the rational part of our brain, which loses its ability to orient and guide its conduct, or even blocks any activity of the prefrontal cortex, the most developed part of the rational brain, it has also been shown, according to a Stanford University study, that it is possible to make a conscious effort to control emotions and block the devastating effect of the most painful or traumatic emotions, physical, psychological or emotional.
But beware of the lasting effects of stress or traumatic situations that can lead you into prolonged states of anxiety, depression, disinterest, demotivation and lack of hope. In these cases, only psychotherapeutic work can restore your interest, motivation, confidence and calm to put your freedom and capacity for self-determination into action, to become master of your destiny and captain of your soul, words that Nelson Mandela borrowed from William Ernest Henley, to inspire and lead himself.