Tamsen Garrie

Are you Self-Lead?

Self Leadership is the capacity and the commitment to take responsibility for and create our own outcomes.  It is the opposite of shifting responsibility for those outcomes onto other people or circumstances.  It’s about having the right intention and both trusting in and expecting the result. 

Learning to self lead is challenging as it goes against our natural tendencies, but once we stop looking externally for motivation and accept that it is an internal job, we are able then to achieve our goals and to enjoy the journey of discovery along the way.

I talk alot on this topic and as a result am inspired daily by people who have learnt to Self Lead by living it.  

I am pleased to share with you an update from Mike Morrision of Mimo to his post on this site back in September 2010:

Guest blog by Mike Morrison of Mimo:

7 months ago I wrote an article I never thought I’d write; laying out details of a past I’d previously kept discretely hidden away.  After I sent it to Tamsen for publication I had that sudden surge of panic that I’d made a terrible mistake.  After all, most of the people reading it would most likely be from within business networking circles, and I feared that I was opening myself up to scrutiny and judgement that would taint both business and personal relationships.

I was wrong. 

The response I received publicly and privately was nothing but warmth, understanding, and appreciation of my candidness.  Writing that article felt extremely cathartic, and more importantly spurred me on to tackle those issues which, despite progress made in recent years, were still weighing me down.

I’ve never wanted to be one of those people who said “next year will be my year”, but I found myself uttering those very words last November, as I looked ahead to the new year, armed with a list of resolutions I was determined to enact.

I’m sure it’s something we all do, make New Years resolutions – just as I’m sure most of us don’t stick to them because we were never fully committed to making those particular changes in our lives; but this year was different.  This time around, I so desperately wanted to change direction and improve my lifestyle and wellbeing for the better.

I set lofty goals – a targeted weight loss of 5 stone by the end of the year, finally quitting smoking, a commitment to put a lot more effort into my mediocre social life, to see friends and family more, to exercise and eat properly, to make progress with my business instead of meandering along, and to be an all-round better and nicer person.

I was absolutely determined to take this seriously and to make these changes, for me. 

Being quite aware of my troublesome attention span when it comes to this sort of thing, I turned it all into a project; something which I could manage, measure and analyse; complete with fancy spreadsheets and pie charts…

Almost 5 months in and I’m still overwhelmed with how far I’ve come.  I’ve already lost 3 and a half of those 5 stone I aimed for, I’ve cut down on smoking (I know, I know!), have a new circle of friends, and a much healthier lifestyle – taking care of myself physically as well as mentally.  I also find myself more focused and driven, yet somehow less stressed.  I no longer see my mood and motivation fluctuate with each passing day, no longer have to take naps during the day or write off an entire weekend lying in bed watching DVD’s because I’m on a “bit of a downer”.

I’ve also found myself in a relationship which, while still new, is going better than I thought I was capable of; my outlook on life is brighter all-round, and surprisingly it doesn’t seem such a mental challenge just being a nicer person!

I’m also seeing improvements on the business side of things too – my company is doing better than ever, and I’ve finally managed to get round to putting plans into place which have been gathering dust for several years.

I credit all of this entirely to mental attitude – to making the decision to change and following through with it.  It’s extremely easy to sit around feeling sorry for yourself, coming up with endless excuses as to why things aren’t quite going how you want to – I know, I did it for years.  It’s also easy to not realise that a change is needed (for a supposedly semi-intelligent person it never occurred to me that eating the junk I used to eat might be related to my constant changes in mood and inability to sleep!) .  Making the decision and resolving to change direction is a difficult thing to do, but so far, for me, it’s been more than worth it.