Choosing to be a Leader: How to Make Conscious Decisions That Will Impact Your Future - Week #5 of The Awakening Journey

Choosing to be a leader is choosing to awaken. You are a leader. And so am I. Whether you are leading your book club, the PTA, a team at work, or running your own business, and even if you aren’t any of these things, you are still the leader of your own life. Every day you are waking up and make choices. You are choosing your life. You are choosing to either react (victim's perspective) to the world.  Or, you are choosing to create from (leader's perspective) and with the world. 

Which one we choose in each and every moment determines the level of awakening of our leadership. And make no mistake, we are all awakening.

Conscious & Unconscious Decisions 

For example, your parents might’ve just given you a directive and you unconsciously followed many of those directives. And even if your parents haven’t done that, society as a whole has. I like to call it the factory mindset. Unconscious decisions we make, and life paths we take because they were laid out for us. We didn’t consciously choose them.

With my own kids, I’ve sought to make conscious decisions and be aware enough to ask them questions and coach them to see a couple of different paths. With the girls, they choose to blaze a completely different trail than what I could’ve ever even imagined. 

This is how choosing conscious decisions lead to awakening. You will have a higher level of awakened leadership. 

The Perception of Leadership

When it comes to choosing to be a leader and making conscious decisions your perception of what leadership actually is will play a major role. 

In Seth Godin’s book, Tribes, I was really impacted by his calling forth into my own leadership. His “heretical” way of turning the system on its head and pointing to how anyone can change the system regardless of where they are located within that system in terms of hierarchical leadership pointed me toward some deeper work and challenged me to embrace what is true (the subtitle for his book):  

We need YOU to lead us.  

When I read this, I was like “Whoa, the world needs me to lead it.”

Making the conscious decision to step out of the shadow (victim perspective) and into the light (leader perspective) will impact not only yourself and your own life, but also the world around you.

The Empowerment Dynamic

One of the ways that my own leadership began to awaken was by reading the book The Empowerment Dynamic by David Emerald. This leadership model was critical in highlighting a visual for me that I was actually unconsciously creating stress, drama, and pain in my life - in every aspect of it. 

Realizing this was a game-changer for me.  

Actually, unconsciously creating your own suffering is very common, studies show that most of the world is in this toxic cycle 95% of the time! This is why we have conflict, wars, and suffering. 

We are in reaction to, not creating from.

But you see, the secret is this: You don't need a Ph.D., or read a million books or take training.  It is actually very VERY simple. 

Because you get to choose in Every Single Moment. 

You get to choose whether you are a Victim or whether you are a Leader.   

What are you choosing right now? 

At that moment, the moment of Choice, you can ask yourself this question: “What am I choosing right Now?" And listen, see, and sense. Am I reacting to what's happening? Am I being a victim, persecuting, or rescuing someone or something?

In the moment of choice, bring your awareness there. This is being present, this is being in the Now. This is the journey of awakening.  

When you open your eyes first thing in the morning, ask yourself, how am I choosing today to perceive myself as a leader? 

During the day, during an ordinary or pivotal moment, ask yourself, how can I actualize that leadership right now. 

Or at night, reflect back and pay attention to one moment where you were a leader.  Acknowledge yourself for doing so. This is aligning your Leader Within onto the path of Awakening.

This is not for everyone. This takes determination. Vigilance. Discipline. And the commitment to our purpose in creating a unique impact on this planet.  

This week’s challenge:

Go on, I dare you. Spend the rest of today asking yourself one of these questions several times a day: 

Am I choosing to be a leader right now?

What conscious decision can I make right now to be a leader?

Am I choosing to move toward my secret dream right now?

Next, we will talk about how to do your own work. In the meanwhile remember: the present moment is where your best life happens!

With love and gratitude,

Darla