Leading Self is Letting Go

Leadership is being spoken about all around me at the moment. More than leading others is the concept of self-leadership. We discuss this in our mastermind, in the office with clients and podcasts are coming my way thick and fast. One concept I picked up on is the need to let go to lead.

This is not letting go of control or management, but letting go of what is dragging us down. Imagine a runner in a race, trying to complete the finish line with a tangle of ropes attached to various weights all strapped to their shoulders. Impossible right? Is this not how most go about their daily lives?

We wake up each day with a fresh opportunity to run the day’s race. Yet we attach the ropes of revenge, regret, respect and redundancy to our shoulders and then attempt to sprint.

They say that revenge is the most empowering force we have on the planet, as many millions of people power themselves through each day with the determination to revenge a past wrong against someone or something.

Regret has a similar power, our past failures haunt us and help us develop a focus on redemption or second chances.

Our inner determination to be like someone else, more successful, thinner, richer, and smarter all drive us to work harder.

Finally past goals and milestones that we set, or were set for us, drive us to work harder to tick off these old and often forgotten by most, goals.

All these may sound like motivational speeches by a half-time coach, but actually, each of these are yet another rope attached to a weight that we carry with us through the daily race of time. And they do not help, despite their myth of motivation.

Taking time to identify and address each of these issues in our lives allows us to acknowledge them and in a physical movement, pluck the rope from our shoulder and let it drop to the floor. Then take a step back to avoid reattachment to the familiar friction.

Maybe start with just one a day for now, until you get to feel the freedom of an unburdened runner. Then a new normal will arise, one of lightweight sprinting, so when a new rope finds its way to us, we recognise the friction immediately and address it before it ties itself to our hearts.

So, here is to the freedom of running, lightweight, free and unburdened. Letting go, is leadership.