Finding Courage to Begin Again
I usually sleep the New Year in and watch the ball drop on the news. New Year’s Eve is an imaginary line in the sand but, I must confess, its power is real. New Year’s inspires us to begin again.
Step into the future or settle for the past.
Three keys to courageously begin again:
People give courage.
The people closest to you determine
the heights you reach.
You don’t lack determination you lack encouraging friends. Connect with courage-givers not courage-drainers. You won’t go far without others.
Resolution: Make a short list of people who lift you and spend more time with them.
Resolution: Fill those around you with courage by honoring their strengths. Make them feel they matter.
Positives inspire courage.
There’s something wrong with everything. There’s always room for improvement. Celebrate progress more frequently than suggesting improvements. Celebrations inspire courage. Constant correction drains courage.
Explaining what’s next
without celebrating what was – discourages.
Resolution: Say at least four positives for every negative.
Love overcomes fear.
Mothers face lions to protect the children they love. Love your organization. Love the people in it.
I’m not talking romantic love. Seek their highest good. Place the interests of others before your own. Self-interest makes leaders cautious. Seeking the interest of others enables and encourages.
Resolution: Place your organization before yourself.
Bonus:
Purpose sustains courage.
Noble mission infuses effort with value and sustains courage. People with purpose begin again.
Leaders fuel courage by explaining purpose,
giving place, and enabling progress.
How do you fill others with courage?
What fills you with courage?
You have nailed what should keep us filled Dan. Celebrate and remember each success as you continue to charge forward. Don’t get lost or stuck in nostalgia or tradition, but savor the good bits and use these to flavor the journey.
How will I fill others with courage? Increasing responsibility while being a slowly retreating safety net. Let them soar to increasing heights and levels of responsibility, and they will be amazed one day to find that they were / are doing it themselves anyway.
Happy New Year to you and yours Dan.
Love the imagery of past success as seasoning the helps us move forward. It gives a whole new meaning to spice things up.
Leaders would be wise to follow your strategy for filling others with courage. … “Slow retreat” demonstrates your experience and insight. Thank you!
Happy New Year to you and yours, too!
This is serendipity — I just got off a brainstorming Skype session with a friend when I saw this blog in my in-bin. We were talking about how we can gather others together for more brainstorming sessions in 2013. How do I fill others with courage? By expressing recognition for their talents/artistry/innovation. Everyone’s got something to share, everyone’s got some talent. What fills me with courage? Just wanting to go out and try new things, knowing that the need to do this is stronger than any fear of failure or embarrassment.
Thanks, Dan, and Happy New Year.
Hi Gary, Thanks for sharing your story and insights. Sounds like you are an entrepreneur. 🙂
I see the value of brainstorming… just start talking stuff.
Happy New Year.
Brilliant Dan. Every one of your comments and suggestions are right on the money. I couldn’t agree more and appreciate how you’ve presented them all! Wishing you a tremendous year ahead!
Thank you Bill. Happy New Year!
Dear Dan,
First of all, I wish you and all connected with leadership freak a very happy, prosperous and successful new year. I would like to discuss about dis-courager and en-courager in different perspective. Both are an important pillar in shaping our success. Discourager always question our capability whereas encourager always believe in our capability. I can share my experience here, I have learned more when there are more discouragers. I always question my belief and capability from others point of views. I do not want to argue with them to prove them wrong. Instead I work harder to prove them wrong from my achievement. And I have always been successful in this effort. Whenever, I have been surrounded by encouragers, I have felt good for time being, but it has also lessen my effort. I use to think, that I am capable and can do it. So, I do not work harder. Sometimes, I proud on myself which could be termed as Ego and self boasting feeling. This is true with me, but this could not be true with others. So, It depends upon your state of acceptance. Since I take the things on its face values, generally in case of negative/criticism. But there are also times, when it may be harder to digest others remarks. It is not always true that others are right. So, you need to demarcate the line what you should accept what not. And this comes from exposure and thinking from outcomes perspective. I like to fill others with courage by appreciating, believing and initiating. I appreciate them, make them to believe it and initiate the things. Sometimes, when needed, I show them by simulation. What fills in me courage is all the events, people and surroundings that questions my capabilities and needed my attention. I am inspired and encourage by all the things, could be structure, nature, living beings, beauty or scenarios. I take everything I come across as my source of encouragement.
Dear Ajay, Happy New Year to you!
Love how you come at this from a new angle. Very valuable.
You are right, we learn more from the “dis-couragers” than those who tell us everything is great.
My experience is unless we focus on encouragement we build negative environments that eventually discourage people. Perhaps the difference is personal vs. organizational.
Having said that, let me encourage you by saying, once again, how much I appreciate your insights and perspective.
Dear Dan,
I could not stop myself in expressing my feelings. Your appreciation encourages me. And this is also a point that question me to add more dimensions and perspectives. However, I love to be questioned my thoughts, ideas and insights. I could say, I have learned a lot from autonomy, appreciation and connection. Here people from different arena have clubbed together to read and comment on comment. And I think, this is the beauty of this blog. I hope, readers, critiques and commenter should join more on expressing their views on authors remarks.
Dear Dan,
A lovely post! Lot of tips to get self-inspired and begin a new year with courage and determination to beat the past success. I admire two of resolution statements viz.’Make a short-list of people who lift you and spend more ime with them’ and ‘Place your organization before yourself’.
I prefer to give courage to others by assigning independent responsibilities with due assessment of their abilities and capabilities and keeping full trust in them to go innovatively. I get courage the same way from my top management. Good operational freedom with adequate decision-making powers inspire me to go ahead to set new suucess heights. Some sort of motivation and appreciation of the immediate bosses also add flavors to my level of enthusiasm and the pace.
Lastly, I share the good thougt ‘Past is experience, present is experiment and future is expectations. So, join your experience and experiment to achieve your expectations in 2013!’ Happy New Year to all ‘leadershipfreak’ community members.
Dear Dr. Asher,
I appreciate your comment. It is true that trust is an important component in encouragement. Reward, generally intangible from immediate boss is great source of power. The three Es is really fantastic and innovative. I will use it. It is true that our expectation is generally based on our experience and experiment. And I believe that there has to be proper and realistic balance between experience+experiment and expectation. When expectation exceeds experience+experiment, it leads to frustration. And that is what management should understand. It is possible with innovative skills, turnaround strategy and technological creativity.
Regards
Ajay
Dear Ajay,
Thanks for your openness in sharing your experiences of learning more from discouragers than encouragers and that becomes a challenge for you to prove them wrong.
However, your disappontness is more since you are treating management as a different entity. Remember, you are part of it. Good things and good people are always admired! It’s a question of your own faith and the consistent good work irrespective of my immediate bosss likes it or not.
If you put the organization first, you shall have a different outlook to progress towards success. Avoid becoming critical! It won’t change anyone but may frustrate you more. You amy agree that changing the boss is more difficult than changing the job.
Dear Dr.Asher,
Very insightful concepts. I have to think it deeply. However, many a times, the difference is not in strategy but values. I think you are right. One need to think part of management and make effort to influence for change. Keeping one outside and expecting it to change might be difficult. Changing the job vs changing the boss is of course interesting idea. I need to look at research perspective. Thanks once again for giving me ideas to discourse and conceptualize.
Regards
ajay
Dear Dr. ASher,
Thank you for sharing how you give and get courage. Nothing like being trusted to bring out our best rather than being micromanaged.
I find your quote about the past, present, and future helpful, especially, “the present is experiment”
Happy New Year to you.
one of your best posts!
Amen! 😉 Love your post
Happy New Year!
Hi Dan, Happy New Year! I always find your blog posts inspiring, and often share them with my own professional network. This post was no different. However, your resolution above “place your organization before yourself” gave me pause. I believe that in order to truly take care of others, and be successful in your work, you must put yourself first. I take care of myself so that I can lead, take care of others, and be successful in my job. I also don’t believe that organizations should expect their employees to put the organization above the self. Am I misunderstanding your context here? Thank you!
Dan,
great blog. I have been following for about 4 months now. Everything is insightful and I love the conversations and nuggets of inspiration that follow.
I am approaching leadership from a slightly different angle and have really not seen much online or in print on my predicament. I’m hoping you could direct me to a good resource for the struggles of following a “dud” leader. I am currently in upper management of a large company and consider my self a good leader of the staff that work with me. I feel that I posses a sharp vision and drive to make our company move forward. The changes I’ve implemented over the last few years have been wildly successful and i have gained quite a following. this success is only with a grain of salt. Our current director is on a part time appointment retiring after 35 years. What is worse, he has surrounded himself with “yes men” and has fully embedded himself in the status quo. of the 1990s. His micromanaging and divisive style is stifling to say the least. Many brilliant people have come into our company and soon left because of such a stagnant environment.
Do you have any threads on how best to survive a “leaderless leader”? I’m sure thousands of others like me feel the same way. Thank you for your time and sage advice.
There is always value to courageous reflection. The new year des provide a natural time to do so, but I like to do it continually.