As a leader a large part of
your time is expended on others, and the time you have with ‘your self’ can be quite
brief. I invite you into some ‘me’ time…grab a coffee and take 10 minutes to consider:
- ‘Who am I?...Who am I …really?”
- ‘What should I do with my life?”
- ‘Who or what do I want to become?”
- ‘What is the right thing to do?”
Ok so these are fundamental existential
questions, they are about your identify and sense of direction and purpose in
life. The offer to consider these in 10 minutes could be unrealistic because as
humans we ask ourselves these questions on and off throughout our life. Central
to each of us is the concern for living a meaningful and fulfilling life. If
you are about to take a lunch break I invite you to grab your lunch and
consider:
- Does your sense of self work for you?
- If you are a self, then how did you get to be the self you think you are?
- It is possible for you to be a different self?
- How would your life be different if you were a different self?
Some head spinning questions
here that can throw you into a space of nothingness. However if you do not
engage in an inquiry about ‘self’ you may take ‘self’ for granted. You may be
blind to your own blindness about what you think of your self. If you are not
willing to consider the possibility that you are blind in this area of your
life you may well put limitations of your self and those you lead.
You may downplay your positive
traits which can mean you give off a negative spin to something that is
objectively good. This notion of your self is created in your language. According
to Truett Anderson
‘By
self I mean the person that you construct with words and with the help of people
around you. The human being is always changing, has no clear boundaries and
cannot be described fully. The self craves stability, has a strong sense of
boundaries and maintains its existence through a continuous act of
descriptions. Your self takes over your consciousness so that you come to equate
it with the human being that you are. You describe yourself by using language
to identify with various things- your nationality, your profession, your place
in the family”.
Sieler argues that the fundamental
concept of the self can be seen as a story that you use to make sense of your ‘beingness’
as a human. However consider…the self is not a phenomenon which exists as an independent
and absolute reality, your self is not fixed, permanent and unchanging, the
self as a process of continual change reinvention and becoming and some time we
have no self or egolessness.
Maybe take the weekend to consider “How well do the stories you hold of your
self serve you as a leader?”