The fuel you need to keep going
This article addresses one of the core tenets of Rebellious Leadership for women. Over three months, my flagship program brings a group of women together to step into this paradigm so they can feel more freedom and regain agency over their own experience.
Rebellious Leader core tenet: A Rebellious Leader prioritizes giving her time and energy to things she can control.
Almost every single woman I work with feels depleted. This feels like the modern demands of having a career and full life. Even the things you’ve been told can free your energy still require your planning and holding. You get a lot of input on how to manage stress and burnout once they’re present in your life.
Before those things are present, knowing what gives you energy and what depletes your energy is critical. Knowing this allows you to turn your attention away from things that deplete your energy and toward the things that are energy giving.
Rebellious Leaders have accepted that giving a large swath of your attention to things you can’t control drains your energy. They’ve committed themselves to focusing the bulk of their attention on the pieces they can control.
What you cannot control
Committing to things you can control is rebellious for a woman because you’ve been conditioned to focus on things outside of your control.
What you can’t control
The three habitual places women need to pull their focus away from are:
Other people. You’ve been told that focusing on others will create safety. If others are happy, healthy and enjoy who you are, things will work out for you. And you’re flexible around how you show up or what you’re willing to do in order to create that. You can influence other people, but focusing on other-oriented outcomes is often a trap that neglects the big thing you can control: yourself. A Rebellious Leader takes an active role in satisfying her needs and desires as much as others’.
The past. When you’re not where you want to be, it can be tempting to ruminate on all the things you wish you would have done differently in the past. Keeping your focus on the past robs you of the opportunity to make a different choice now, from this moment. Recovering from this habit means acknowledging that at any moment you can begin again honoring your reality and what you know in this moment.
The future. This habit is about operating outside of your limits to get a desired future. The problem arises when the choices you make in the current moment damage your well-being, put your integrity into question or are no longer sustainable even when what you wanted hasn’t emerged. A Rebellious Leader holds the path she’s walking in equal value to the end destination. She’s defined what enough effort and output is for her and lets herself rest in moments on her path.
Refocusing your attention on what you can control
Refocusing your energy and attention on things you can control can be hard. You may have stopped considering many of the things in the image above. You know others’ goals, but not your own. You know how others would handle a challenge, but don’t have a sense of that for yourself. You willingly help others, but refrain from asking for help.
The first big step in learning to focus on what you can control is to approach yourself with deep curiosity about what you are wanting for yourself. What makes you come alive? What evokes an integrity with yourself that makes you proud of the way you navigate your career and world? It’s necessary to center yourself, because you are the place from which everything originates.
Call for reflection:
Where is one place you can bring your attention back to something you can control?
Shine On,
Alicia
(Image by Gustavo Fring via Pexels)