Challenge completed. I’ve posted four times this week. I can tell you it has definitely been a challenge and one that was worth the effort. Like any experience in life, I have been thinking about what I am learning about my leadership this week.

Have an impact

I want to have an impact in everything I do. In fact, I can see I have an impact in everything I do. I received several notes this week thanking me and telling me about the impact I had this week.

Tuesday, I drew a similarity between leadership and the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect says when a butterfly flaps its wings in North America, a hurricane develops on the other side of the world.

Leaders, much like the butterfly, have an impact. They may never know the scope of their impact, and that doesn’t matter. The impact is real regardless of whether the leader knows about it.

Love unconditionally

Leaders love unconditionally. By loving myself unconditionally and without evaluation I increase the impact I can have.

What I’ve come to realize is I have been talking about loving everything about myself. The good, the bad and the ugly. The problem with this view is I’m putting energy into evaluating what’s right or wrong about me. I am far more powerful by just loving everything about myself as just the way it is.

Doing this provides me far more energy to put on more productive pursuits.

Live with Purpose

I believe in living a life of purpose. For me, this means being clear on what impact I want to have and not compromising what I believe in.

This is one of the reasons I accepted this challenge of posting four times this week. Despite all the stories I might tell myself about my writing it does fulfil my purpose. In everything I choose to do I am living a life of purpose.

Live boldly

I choose to live boldly. The most obvious example is the tattoo on my forearm. I love my tattoo as it’s a constant reminder of the commitment I had to myself. The artwork holds very deep meaning for me. I never purposely hide my tattoo as it is a constant reminder of how I want to live my life. Boldly and on purpose.

In my work, it’s much the same. I intend to be bold whether it’s in my writing or with a client I’m working with. When I am bold, I have come to see I deepen the impact I am having.

I will live boldly.

Stop taking life so seriously!

When I decided to take a break from posting a few months I beat myself up about it. I was full of judgement for letting my readers down, and my inability to keep going.

However, it serves no purpose to beat myself up for taking a break. Actually, it never serves a purpose to beat myself up about anything. We often tell ourselves it’s the key to improvement or some other such story. However, the truth is when we beat ourselves up it only costs us.

I am human, and I am the sum of everything which makes up who I am. There is no good or bad, so I intend to stop taking life so seriously!

Let’s dance!

Where to from here?

There’s so much more I could include in this post. It has been a  week rich in learning about myself and my leadership. I look forward to sharing more as I continue to post on a regular basis (just not four times every week).

So … as my coach would say … Off I go!