The CORE SKILL of Resilience and How to Learn It Today

Face it, you're already a leader in some capacity in several aspects of your life.  You are now, you have been or you will be a leader at some point in your home, your workplace or in organizations you belong to.  

Leadership, and more specifically "Self-Leadership", is the key to attaining true Personal Resilience and all the benefits that flow from it: vibrant health, clear focus, great relationships, a sense of extraordinary well-being and fulfillment and all the rest.  So what is "Self-Leadership" anyway?  

Simply put, Self-Leadership is the CORE SKILL of Resilience itself and of any kind of leadership.  It's the ability to be the leader of your own life - to establish a clear direction in every area of your life, to establish the actions you're going to take to move in that direction and to execute those actions on a consistent basis.  

You've probably heard the expression "a born leader" so often you assume leadership is an innate quality - you've got it or you don't.  Wrong!  Ninety percent of leadership and therefore of Self-Leadership is learned.   And you can learn it, irrespective of your age, sex or temperament.

The following exercise is designed to set you firmly on the path towards acquiring genuine Self-Leadership.  You can start right now and make a phenomenal difference in the quality of your life over the next week using it.  Here's a hint for you... If you find yourself vacillating about what to write down or what to do, just force yourself to make a decision and to follow up on it over the next week.  You can always change your mind after that.  Force yourself to be decisive.

Also, you must do this exercise in writing.  So get out pen and paper or open a new document on your computer.

THE RESILIENCE SELF-LEADERSHIP EXERCISE:

1.   Write one paragraph describing who you are, what values you stand for and what you want to be remembered for (time limit: 15 minutes)

2.  Describe your most important immediate goal in each area of your life - Health / Relationships / Career / Spiritual life (Time limit: 15 minutes)

3. In the coming week, what ONE action will you undertake in each of those areas to get you closer to your immediate goal for that area? (Time limit: 10 minutes)


4. In the coming week, what ONE challenge will you set for yourself to take you out of your comfort zone and build your resilience?  (Time limit: 10 minutes)


5. In the coming week, what will you read, watch and listen to in order to inspire you to adhere to your values, preserve your personal integrity, build your confidence, challenge yourself and benefit others? (Time limit: 15 minutes)


Go through this exercise, follow up consistently on what you promised yourself you would do and I guarantee your quality of life in the coming week will surprise and delight you.  And how will you know you've done it right?


Well, if you sit down and take stock of the coming week next Friday afternoon at, say, 5pm, and you find yourself thinking "Damn, this week was a great ride!", then you did it right.  


And the funny thing is, you'll be able to say that whether you were "successful" or not, whether you experienced victory or defeat or a bit of both.  As Robert Kiyosaki once put it, "Only losers think losing is bad."  If you take action, you can be defeated, but you can't "lose".