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Find MY BOOK - Mastering Confidence: Discover your leadership potential by awakening your inner guidance system
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Once you’ve stopped (PAUSE) to reflect on what’s been going on (PONDER) and shifted your perspective on things (PIVOT) you need to back into action (PROCEED)
Proceeding forward by taking that action isn’t always easy!
In this training session I teach you the 2 steps you need to take to get back into in action. 
LINKS from today's session
Find MY BOOK - Mastering Confidence: Discover your leadership potential by awakening your inner guidance system
If you are in the middle of something and it’s hitting you big time, you’d probably rather not be at work. The dread of this particular challenge is dragging you down. You feel it in your body, and you hear within as your thoughts, that echo around the common theme, “I can’t handle this anymore!”
You are feeling incompetent, overwhelmed and perhaps, fear that your credibility is slipping. What if I told you, you can instead, feel more confident right now? In this article, you will learn the one question to ask yourself to remove that self-doubt and instantly feel surer of yourself. 
The diagnosis
If there were such a thing as a Leadership Doctor, they’d diagnose you with failing confidence. The one telltale sign, without the blood work or body scan, would be your negative mind chatter. The doctor could tell what the issue was, as soon as you mentioned to them that your thoughts were full of:
What do you think about yourself? Confidence is what you tell yourself. Nothing more. If you think you can, you can. If you believe it’s possible, you’ll figure out a way to make it happen. If you trust you will handle it, you’ll handle it. Confidence is a belief in your abilities, of your potential and of your faith that you can learn or figure it out. Confidence is an inner game. Are you worried about what others think about you? Where many women get stuck is that they wait for something to happen, someone else to do something, say something or offer them a better option. If you doubt, hesitate, hold back, or find you are afraid to say something, it could be because you want the go-ahead from someone else.
Their opinion won’t make you feel more confident Sadly, most women leaders rarely hear words of encouragement like that from their boss, their board chair and probably even rarer still from their employees or colleagues. Praise, accolades or encouragement just don’t show up. But here’s the funny thing…even if it did, it still wouldn't make you feel any more confident. Because it doesn’t matter what they think, it only matters what you think!
Your confidence rises or falls based on what you think about your capabilities
You become more confident when you shift your inner dialogue. When your thoughts rotate around reflections about what you can do, instead of what you can’t, your confidence rises. To feel increased confidence, work to have these kinds of thoughts yourself:
To feel more confident, tame your inner dialogue To be a confident leader, you need to be the encouraging voice inside of your head. Instead of the negative mind chatter, you need to:
Tame your inner dialogue Confidence is what you think you can do. The challenge is most of our thoughts are unconscious. Learning to change your inner dialogue takes time. It helps when you develop a system for checking in frequently with your thoughts and adjusting them as necessary. The proven technique: Install a system to help you manage your thoughts A system that helps you to pause your thinking and checking in with your thoughts is the first step. Once you pause, take a moment to ponder. Ask yourself if your current thoughts are moving you towards the feeling and outcome you desire. You may find as you reflect that your thoughts are keeping you stuck in feeling incompetent, overwhelmed and lacking creditability. Ask yourself this question to instantly feel more confident If your thoughts are negative, focused on what’s not working or circling around who needs to say or do something before you can feel sure, try asking this question. To feel more confident right now, what do I need to be thinking? The act of pivoting your thoughts to the future, to confidence instead of lacking confidence changes how you feel.
When you shift your thoughts, you proceed forward with increased feelings of confidence. You once again feel more capable, because you are thinking about all the experience you have, what you’ve done before and how much you believe in your project.
When you manage your thoughts, you feel more confident
You can overcome self-doubt and feel a surge of confidence by following the system to regain control of your thinking. Every time you are struggling, or you hit a wall, come back to pausing. Stop long enough to reflect (ponder). Ask yourself: To feel more confident right now, what do I need to be thinking? Shift your thoughts (pivot), and take the next action step forward (proceed). 2 Immediate Boosts of Confidence Sometimes though you need an immediate boost of confidence to handle a tricky situation. You can find 2 immediate confidence boosts here to get you through today’s challenge.
Spending your entire leadership day with your head down, pouring over only what’s in front of you, won’t get you very far. Effective Lady Leaders regularly lift their head up, look around from side to side and peer off into the future. They are “systems aware.”
It’s time to take a look at how you can expand your awareness to this broader and longer view of your work. 
Excellence in Leadership Series
This is our second week in the Excellence in Leadership Series, which is looking at the skills needed to be an A+ Lady Leader. I am pulling these essential skills from The Leadership Circle Profile - TLC. TLC is a tool I use with the ladies in my Women with Grit program to help them become exceptional leaders. Systems Awareness This week in the series, I am focusing is on the skills of broadening and lengthening our view. That expanded view is what systems awareness is all about. When you are cognizant of the systems around you, you lead with the bigger picture in mind. Instead of the tiny microscopic scene of the daily crises, the fires that pop up and the problem of the day in front of you, you adopt a macro perspective. Rather than using a microscope to dissect the immediate future, think of using a periscope and a telescope to look around you and ahead of you.
A community focus considering your long-term legacy
The first thing this expanded perspective allows you to do is reawaken your concern for the welfare of the community you serve or the larger global community you are connected to. Next, it helps you to then connect your day-to-day work to the long lasting legacy you leave on that community. You start to consider how your leadership and the work your team does is of service to future generations? When you are NOT Systems Aware To put the skill of systems awareness into perspective, let's look at where many leaders are now. Instead of this long and broad view, many of us have a very tiny view. We adopt a short-term focus. So many leaders live in reactive mode, solving whatever problem pops up, putting out fires, looking for quick fixes or Band-Aid Solutions Slow down and lift your head up Instead, when you hone the skill of being more focused on the bigger systems, you widen your view and focus on the impact you have on the community, over the long-term. This requires you to step back from the urgency to fix the current crisis and lift your head up. It is about slowing down, looking around and then choosing a response rather than reacting. 3 skills to enhance The three skills associated with increasing your system’s awareness are developing what is called community concern, focusing on being able to sustain your productivity and examining how systems are intertwined which is being a systems thinker.
Grow your Systems Awareness Skills
Becoming systems aware helps you to lift your head up and take a look around. Looking up and around helps you to both keep your eye on the prize (your vision) and help you know what’s going on, that can either help you or hinder you on the way to that view way far off in the distance. Hone the skills of:
Want to learn more?
You can learn more here by listening to this session on how you can increase your skills to increase your systems awareness. Then, get awaken your systems awareness, download the guide below which will help to broaden and expand your view of your work.
When you pause and notice what you are actually thinking, you may have realized that the thoughts you are thinking are not exactly helping you get to where it is you want to go. AND you may have realized that you are not quite sure what to do about that. I mean really, it’s not as if you just snap your fingers and they are changed forever. I wish! The trick is to change your perspective. It is to alter the lens through which you are viewing the challenge in front of you, the relationship that is frustrating you or changing how you see yourself.  Shifting Perspectives Shifting your perspective takes a bit of practice. Once you train yourself to alter how you see things, you’ll get better at doing it more quickly. There are two things you need to have when you want to start changing the perspective of your thoughts
You need to hope you can change your thoughts and you need to develop a plan to do that. Let’s break that down more. Hope Before I explain a bit more about hope, let me first let’s define optimism. We often get the two confused. When you are optimistic, you believe that your future will be better than your present. It’s good to be optimistic
When you turn optimism into hope, you take it one step further. Hope is not only believing your future can be better than your present. Hope is also understanding and accepting that you have a role in making your future better than the present. Rather than just waiting to see what happens, hope helps you to make it happen.
3 parts to HOPE To cultivate this kind of hope, there are 3 parts to consider; goals, confidence, and pathways. First, identify your goal. Your goal is your future desire. But it’s less about out there…and more about inside of you. What is the different inner experience you are looking for? In the context of what we have been talking about for the last few weeks, your goal is to have different thoughts. You now know that when you change your thoughts, it will change your experience of things. In the second example above, the goal is not a rain free adventure. That is something that is outside of your control. Instead, your goal is to feel a sense of joy when you and your family are at the park despite the rain. The goal is inside of you: joy. Next, consider your level of confidence in yourself. Do you believe in yourself and your abilities to change how you think so that you will get a different experience? Can you find joy despite the rain? Can you create fun and enthusiasm in those around you and turn the puddles into games? The question is, do you really believe you can change your thoughts and that by doing so you will change your experience. If you don’t believe that, you are not going to find that sense of joy you are looking for. Finally, plan your pathway. What route are you going to take to achieve that goal? What will you need to do, again, think inside of you, to get there? Your plan might be that before heading out on the trip, you dig out the rubber boots. You may also pack and an extra set of clothes. But it is more than the outside planning here; the key is to plan how you will change your thoughts. You could design a shift in thinking from “This is not going to go well” to “What can make this fun for us?” he “If/Then” Plan As you look at your pathway to get to that different experience, you may notice some potential bumps along the way;
When you are planning this shift in thoughts and experience, take those potential obstacles into account and plan for them. If my child gets cranky, then I will remind myself to take a deep breath helping me to respond more calmly rather than reacting with frustration. Use the If/then formula to plan ahead for how you will respond (conscious choice) rather than react (getting hijacked by emotions and events). If this happens... then I will… Another Example Let’s look at the scenario of a meeting with the annoying co-worker.
 Hope + A Plan = The Ability to Change Your Thoughts & Thus Your Experience
Cultivating hope and developing an if/then plan are important factors to building the skill of shifting your perspective. Remember, this takes time and practice. When you start to change the filters through which you see problems, others and yourself, you will start to experience them differently. Define the outcome you want, your goal. Believe you can, your confidence. Decide what you will do, if something goes wrong, your plan. Hope you can change your future, by taking back reasonability for your thoughts. One-step at a time my dear, one step at a time!
Thoughts, a voice in your head, monkey brain, or mind chatter. We call it many things, but it’s all the same. It is the conversation or monolog we are having with ourselves inside our head. What you need to know about that mind chatter is this:
 MIND CHATTER is there: We all have thoughts; the majority of them are unconscious. It is the thoughts we are oblivious to, that often lead to experiencing our lives in ways we don’t want. For example, many of us don’t realize that via our inner thoughts, we have been convincing ourselves that we can’t handle our overwhelming responsibilities, appointments and to do’s. Yet, if you stopped and paid attention to your thoughts you might hear your mind repeating similar phrases like a broken record:
MIND CHATTER rules your life: What you think about creates your experience of life. Or…what you expect, you get. It is those unconscious expectations that you are setting for yourself that make you feel the way you do. In the example above, your unconscious thoughts of overwhelm gave you the experience of feeling incompetent in handling your day. When you have those repeating thoughts in your mind that are reminding you that you can’t handle it, you create your sense of overwhelm. That draws your attention to notice everything that goes wrong, every second “stolen” from you and each extra task added to your list. You can manage your MIND CHATTER: When you become more aware of your thoughts, you can choose what you are thinking. Those different thoughts shift your experience. Once more, using the example above, you could begin to manage your thoughts about your day. Instead of the catastrophic thoughts that you have about your overwhelming day, you can catch yourself going down that path and turn a different way. By choosing instead to think about your ability to handle things and to be alert for opportunities, you change your experience.
When you become more conscious of your inner thoughts and then shift them, you also find you experience your day differently. You didn’t necessarily change anything going on outside of you; you shifted your thought about what was going on outside of you. The tasks, meetings, and duties are still there; they just have less power over you. Shifting your mind chatter leave you feeling more in control and on top of the priority projects; not everything, but you know that it’s the true priorities that matter at the end of the day. The tools to managing your thoughts:
Developing an awareness of your mind chatter helps you to manage it. When you manage your thoughts, you manage your life. It is by handling your inner world that you create the experience in the outer world that you desire. Remember, what you need to know about that mind chatter is this: it’s there, it rules your life, and you can manage it. Almost 70% of the workforce is either disengaged or actively disengaged. That means they either just don’t really care and are putting in time or they are purposefully making things worse for those around them. That leaves just over 30% who are enthusiastic, engaged and energized by their jobs. Not only do they love what they do, but they also go the extra mile to make a difference in their organization. Which one are you?  Your experience of engagement is probably mixed Perhaps a mix of both. Some days you love to be there, but most days you are dragging your butt out of bed and resenting having to the office. Which group would you place most of your employees in? Perhaps a mix of both as well. Some days they seem keen on helping out and supporting others. And at other times they appear fixated on making your life hell. But what if, you could change it? What if you could both increase your engagement at work as well as the level of engagement for those around you? You can! And truly, it doesn’t take much work. What it takes, is a mindset shift. Do this: To re-engage in your work, you need to decide you will. That means you actively
Don't expect overnight miracles Yes, everything around will be the same as it’s always been, at least initially. But gradually, your attitude will rub off on those around you. Gradually is the key word. The second key word was your attitude. Change your attitude my dear Mindset. Attitude. It’s the same thing.
Your outlook on your job and your view of the people you work with profoundly impacts your experience of work. Wayne Dyer said, “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at start to change.” What is your view? Consider these examples. Do you stop at the first part of the sentence or shift your attitude and add an alternative?
 Shifting your experience starts with shifting your attitude Gallup has identified 4 ways to improved employee engagement. But before you pop over there and read that article, check in to see what your attitude is.
Inspiring enthusiasm starts with you On last week’s FB Live session I talked about Inspiring Enthusiasm in Yourself and Your Team. We took Gallup’s measurement for engagement and flipped it around. Rather than waiting to see what others will do around you to make your work environment different. What are you doing to make that shift? Watch the live session here and don’t forget to grab your free guide here. Engagement is an attitude. It’s your attitude or your mindset. If you want to feel more enthused and engaged at work and you desire if for others, it starts with you! Watch last week's FB Live session below:
Learn more about shifting your mindset and attitude here
Increasing your confidence as a leader is critical to both performing strongly and to feeling good. Confidence comes from inside of you rather than from external sources. You don’t become more confident as a result of what others say to you. Instead, your confidence increases when you tell yourself you can and when you then believe you can. That means if you want a greater level of confidence, you need to grow it from inside.  Confidence Hacks To help you out with your thinking, I’m sharing some confidence hacks. The 1st Hack was Know You Can. If you can’t do it, no amount of thinking you can do something will give you the feeling of confidence. That means you may need to take some training, read a book or practice a skill to become more proficient, adept or able, thus more confident. Confidence is what you think you are capable of doing This week we are moving on to the 2nd confidence hack: Believe You Can. This hack is all about shifting your mindset. I think I can…I think I can…I think I can… Do you believe you can? If you don’t, I’m sorry to tell you, but you are in for some big challenges! If you don’t believe in your ability or skill, you will hit internal resistance. That inner voice will tell you to should step back. It will suggest you let someone else take the reins. That whisper in your mind will caution you, that you aren’t quite ready yet. Believe You can The confidence hack "Believe You Can" is about change your thinking. Your thoughts can either propel you forward, cause you to freeze or to make you pull back. If you want to increase your confidence, you’ll need to become aware of those thoughts and possible alter or tweak them. Sometimes it doesn’t take much of a shift in the words you are thinking. This powerful example from Alicia Keys reminds us of how quickly changing one word can impact us. Shifting from “If I…” to “When I…” is an incredible tweak! Here are 2 ways to tweak your thoughts to have the most power over your confidence levels. Use Your Inner Guidance Cycle Using the steps of the Inner Guidance Cycle (pause, ponder, pivot & proceed) will help you to become aware of your thoughts. The cycle gives you access to your Inner Guidance System, which is that inner wisdom. That internal insight allows you to notice the thought and then determine if what you are thinking is going to be helpful in getting you where you want to be. That awareness can help you to fine-tune the thought. When you think, “I’m not ready yet.” You tend to stay quiet at a meeting. Noticing the precise words you are thinking, lets you step back and perhaps alter the what is going on in your mind. If you’ve been practicing public speaking (Remember Hack #1 was about increasing your competence so that you Know You Can), you may then adjust the thought to “It’s not going to come out perfectly, however, if I keep practicing I’ll get better. Speaking up now is an excellent opportunity to practice public speaking in real time.” This transformed thought boosts your confidence and helps you to speak up. Develop a Growth Mindset A fixed mindset keeps you stuck in a particular belief. When you have a fixed mindset, you don’t trust you can change or grow. You think you’ll never be smarter, more talented, a better speaker or good at conflict. The result of holding the belief firmly is that becomes an ongoing attitude of “Why to bother trying?" This stance kills your confidence. Instead, when you develop a growth mindset, you become open to possibilities. A person with a growth mindset knows that it will take effort and time, however, that it is possible to change themselves. Grow your growth mindset To adopt a growth mindset, get better at asking
Believe You Can = Increased Confidence Shifting your mindset and the way you think can have a profound impact on your confidence level. First, use the Inner Guidance Cycle to become more aware of your thoughts. Then develop a growth mindset that keeps you open to change and possibility. That increased awareness and a mindset shift will heighten your confidence, so you can both have a greater effect on your leadership and feel good in the process.
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Kathy ArcherWomen leaders often hit a point where they find themselves in over their heads and wondering if they have what it takes to lead. Archives
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