Empowerment comes from within.  I have been lucky in my life to meet many people who have understood this.  They have given me information, encouraged me, and sometimes pointed out where I was going wrong.  Sometimes I listened to them.  Sometimes I didn’t.  On occasion I realised the truth of their offerings years later.  Some of the things I need to learn in life are very difficult and I still struggle with them.  I suspect it’s the same for all of us. But we can all continue to improve- it’s the nature of the human race.

We are all influenced by our environment, our upbringing and our life experiences.

We get messages from everything we do or see – millions of them every day.  The effect is to convince us we’re ‘good’ at one thing, or ‘bad’ at another.

Part of the problem, I believe is that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are very relative concepts, and not always helpful.  I find it more useful to look at what we do and evaluate the consequences of our actions. Our minds are in fact quite adept at this, but we also have to bear in mind the results won’t always turn out the same. It depends so much on circumstances.

To empower ourselves we have to believe in ourselves, but not too much! While a positive outlook is always good, you should also be willing to listen to others – “a mistake is only a mistake if you do not learn from it.”

A key to self-empowerment is the willingness to engage in lifelong learning.  The old saying ‘You learn something new every day’ is one of the healthiest attitudes to have.

Trusting our own intelligence is very important.  Often when we do things instinctively, it’s not a whim, but is based on our previous memories, which may well be sub-conscious. It’s also good to learn to trust in the wisdom of others, after all, none of us know everything about everything.

 In working with my clients I try to be aware of what will empower them to direct themselves to the best ideas, sources and actions; which will take them to the next place they want to be to achieve their goals. Finding out for yourself can be so much more satisfying than being told the answer, which is why we try to point in the right direction rather than laying everything out. Giving advice is only a last resort; since most people will switch off or mentally criticize when they hear what sounds like preaching.

This slide presentation might help your empowering feelings shine through.

Do you have an empowerment experience?  Log on to the Mycelium forum and share it!

GATEWAYS TO AMBITION

If your goal were the tower in this picture, what would you do to reach it? Open the gate, yes? It seems so simple! Unfortunately business problems are rarely so obvious, and you might need a little help finding a good route to your goal.

Graham Bell Associates can help you find that elusive gateway, and see how to open it.  There are no big secrets.  You maybe just need to:

• plan to open it
• train how to open it
• learn the patterns that will lead you to the opening
• give yourself permission to tell it to open
• get some allies to help open it

Contact us using the details in the sidebar if you’d like to find out more.

Though we have a National stadium in the middle of a chemical works, in the pouring rain, we can still achieve.  Can’t we?