Personal Leadership for Women: Do What is Right, but Right for Whom?

Generally a good rule of thumb is to do what is right.  Not necessarily what is easy, or what we want, but what is right.

Suppose what is right for another is not right for us, however?  If it is something that will harm us, then the answer is easier—do not do it. 

What if it will not harm us, but is not convenient for us?  Or it will not hurt us, but we really do not feel like doing it?  Then the answer is much more difficult.  On the one hand, we need to take care of ourselves.  On the other, we do have responsibilities toward others, especially those that depend upon us.

I do not think there are any easy answers to this.  It depends on the situation and the participants.  The guidelines that I try to use follow.

• Is it my sole responsibility to do it?  If yes, then I do it.
• Is it primarily my responsibility to do it?  If yes, then I do it unless there is someone else responsible, available, and willing to do it.
• Is it something that needs to be done and am I the best qualified, capable, and/or available to do it?  If yes, then I generally do it.
• Is it something that is someone else’s responsibility?  If yes, then I may do it if the person does not ask for help often.  If the person is capable of doing it himself or herself and yet frequently asks for help, I usually say no.  There comes a point when I do not want someone to take advantage of me and I do not want to enable that person to not take responsibility.
• If I do not do it, will someone else come to harm regardless of whose responsibility it is?  If yes, then I do it if I can.

Determining what is the right thing to do can be a difficult balancing act.  If we at least think about it first and make a conscious decision, we will probably make a good decision.

Personal Leadership for Women: Write Your Epitaph

An exercise to help in goal setting is to write your own obituary.  When you pass away at age 80, 90, 100, or whatever you desire, what do you want your obituary to say?  What accomplishments do you want to have recorded?  What do you want people to say about you? 

This can help you determine what your life goals are.  Once you know what your goals are, you can develop and implement a plan to achieve them.

A similar exercise, and one that may require more thought, is to write your epitaph.  What one sentence do you want on your grave marker to sum up who you were?  This can be harder to do because of the limited number of words.  It becomes necessary to really distill your essence.  This describes you as a person, not necessarily your accomplishments.

I think this may be what I will want:  “Susan was a wise woman of integrity.”  I am not wise yet, although I do well with the integrity part.  I may change my mind as time goes on, but for now, I think striving for this is worthwhile.

What do you want your epitaph to be?

Personal Leadership for Women: Surround Yourself with Positive People

We have all heard and read that we need to surround ourselves with positive people.  We need to associate with people who build us up rather than tear us down.  We need to hear people tell us what can be done, not what cannot be done.

I realized recently that this applies to social media as well.  There are people who do nothing but complain.  They post all sorts of problems, but never any solutions.  They are negative people and I need to separate myself from them.  We all do. 

Sometimes we do not have a choice in “real life.”  There are negative people that the best we can do is minimize the time we spend with them.  There is absolutely no reason to hang on to these people in social media, however!

I am going to purge myself of the negative people in social media.  I suggest you do the same.

Personal Leadership for Women: The Success We Think We Deserve

My husband and I saw Perks of Being a Wallflower when it was in the theaters.  There is a line in the movie that still resonates with me.  “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

I think this is true.  I think that we do accept the love that we think we deserve.  Unfortunately, often we do not think we deserve very much!  This has a negative impact on all the relationships in our lives.  We accept the treatment from others that we think we deserve.

This can also have an impact on our success.  Sometimes we accept the level of success that we think we deserve.  If we do not think that we deserve to be successful, it will be extremely difficult to be successful.  People are very good at self-sabotage, and they generally do not even realize it.

I encourage you to think carefully about what level of success you think you deserve.  From there, think about why you do not think you deserve a higher level of success.  This exercise can give you great insight on those thoughts that may be holding you back.