Few people would shy away from the idea of achieving self-empowerment. After all, who would fail to benefit from taking their destiny in hand with confidence, clarity, decisiveness, and genuine understanding of their strengths and weaknesses? It sounds like a recipe for a fulfilling life.
However, just because you want something doesn’t make getting it an obvious endeavor. That’s where this article comes in. The following 10 key steps to achieve self-empowerment in life and business will help you on your way:
Steps To Achieve Self-Empowerment in Life and Business
1. Take Responsibility
There are few behaviors that more thoroughly place the ball in your court than taking responsibility in your life. This doesn’t mean taking on everyone’s baggage and claiming it as your own. Nor does it mean ignoring the very real differences in opportunity that each individual possesses. Rather, it means looking clearly at your circumstances and owning your actual role in them.
Furthermore, it means as the mystic, author, and luminary Sadhguru puts it, being response-able, or able to respond to the world around you appropriately. This entails, avoiding compulsiveness and fostering the ability to engage in the demands of life in an efficacious manner. These actions promote confidence, competence, and ultimately self-empowerment.
2. Focus on yourself and who you are
You will never know what you stand for, what you value, or how powerful you are until you know yourself and let that knowledge guide you in your life.
3. Build A Solid Foundation
A building is only as strong as the foundation upon which it is made. The same is true for an organization, a community, a family, and an individual. A crucial facet of true self-empowerment is the realization of how intrinsically connected we are to other people and our planet as a whole. By acknowledging the profound importance of this interplay we can begin to understand our value.
Being genuinely invested in your connection to others, working to build strong relationships, and increasing a sense of solidarity provide necessary meaning and value in life. A strong network is a foundation from which you can build the life you want to live since meaning forms the basis for finding, pursuing, and creating your destiny.
4. Focus On Your Own Race
Focus on your race in life. Instead of focusing on the competitors, concentrate on the ball in front of you. If you’re preoccupied with the competition and what they’re doing or not doing, you’ll lose sight of the value of whatever you’re doing. Self-focus is a key way to empower yourself.
There is no better example of this than Michael Phelps’ victory over a South African swimmer who was intent on defeating Phelps and trashing Phelps in the media during the previous summer Olympics. The South African swimmer didn’t devote enough attention to his race. Phelps won because he was focused on the task at hand.
5. Have Faith In Yourself
Have faith in your abilities and yourself. You’ll be more motivated to achieve your objectives if you have faith in yourself. You’ll only be actively refining your capacity to doubt yourself if you spend your time doubting your abilities. Your thinking dictates your behaviors. Spend less time doubting yourself and more time trusting in yourself.
Belief in self is highly empowering, it drives you to succeed as that self-confidence makes you strong in decision making and goal chasing.
Taking measured action-driven risks will teach you to trust yourself the most deeply. The more successful you become at taking risks, the easier it becomes and the more likely you are to succeed. The better you are at discerning when your instincts are on and when they aren’t, the more successful you become at taking risks.
6. Cultivate Your Intrinsic Motivation
You cannot achieve self-empowerment if you spend all your time looking outside yourself for validation. Instead, if you cultivate your intrinsic motivation, you will find that noise and clutter drop away, and clarity descends. This puts the locus of control in your hands, rather than leaving it up to the reactions of others.
According to an article for Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, the past four decades of field and experimental research, “has found intrinsic motivation to predict enhanced learning, performance, creativity, optimal development, and psychological wellness.”1 If this isn’t a recipe for self-empowerment, I don’t know what is.
7. Be Open To Any Possibility
You have the ability and duty to discover the part of yourself where anything is possible. The more open you are to possibilities, the more creative and imaginative you will become, and the larger the word will give you a chance to succeed. If you have a pessimistic, angry, or defeated mentality, that is how you will live.
Closed minds are negative minds. Closed minds refuse to see a world of possibilities. They place an excessive amount of emphasis on what isn’t right, what isn’t occurring, and the lack of opportunity.
Why would you want to live in this manner? Your views have a direct impact on your life. If you wish to improve your situation, If you are looking for a better result, you must first create it. Your chances for new hope and transformation are limitless, and it all begins with you. Empower yourself by opening yourself up to any possibility.
8. Clarify Your Goals
Is it possible to reach goals that you haven’t set for yourself? It seems unlikely. Contrarily, consciously plotting a course can more assuredly lead you where you want to go.
An article for Positive Psychology confirms this, stating that goals “help align your focus and promote a sense of self-mastery. In the end, you can’t manage what you don’t measure and you can’t improve upon something that you don’t properly manage. Setting goals can help you do all of that and more.”2
9. Open The Door To The Unknown
The very act of being open to possibility generates personal empowerment. This occurs through several avenues including increasing engagement in life, enhancing feelings of excitement, offering new opportunities to learn, cultivating self-confidence, and promoting positivity.
According to a study for International Business and Management, “open individuals are sensitive to beauty, imaginative, liberal in values, curious in nature, emotionally differentiated, and behaviorally flexible.”3 These traits lead not only to a more satisfying lived experience but are also key to achieving self-empowerment.
10. Use Your Network
Collaborating with others rather than competing is another key way to empower yourself.
Networking is one of the most effective strategies to advance your purpose. Assemble a team of people who can help you fill in the gaps where you are weak. This allows you to delegate to individuals who can best assist you in achieving your objectives.
Collaboration is all about bringing people together. Success is shared in collaborative environments. It is people who empower others.
References:
- Di Domenico, Stefano I, and Richard M Ryan. “The Emerging Neuroscience of Intrinsic Motivation: A New Frontier in Self-Determination Research.” Frontiers in human neuroscience vol. 11 145. 24 Mar. 2017, doi:10.3389/fnhum.2017.00145
- Riopel, Leslie. “The Importance, Benefits, and Value of Goal Setting.” PositivePsychology.com, 14 June 2019, https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-goal-setting/https://positivepsychology.com/benefits-goal-setting/
- Tabatabaei Yazdi, Amir & Mustamil, Norizah. (2015). Empowerment Potential: Big-Five Personality Traits and Psychological Empowerment. International Business and Management. 11. 62-69. 10.3968/7938.
