 Self Leadership
Having Purpose and Direction
Self Leadership is at the heart of the concept of Mission Coach and the process of Mission Coaching. While external resources (books, tapes, people, web sites) can help us live our Mission (our purpose in life) the motivation for doing so can only come from within. Below are some guidelines and some useful ways of thinking about Mission and Self Leadership that can be helpful.
| Mission | Having a sense of Mission or Life's Purpose | | Prosperity | Being willing to receive | | Openness | Being open to new ways of thinking | | Trust | Knowing it is safe to explore the unknown | | Awareness | Knowing you don't know and knowing you do | | Intuition | Being open to inspiration and guidance | | Creativity | Knowing your thoughts create your experience of the Universe | | Gratitude | Appreciating your role as co-creator of your Universe |
Mission
 Mission can be a difficult concept to grasp and much like the word "ego" the meaning of the word "Mission" can mean anything from achieving a goal to a lifetime's dedication to a way of living. Here are some useful ways of thinking for what Mission could be: - Our Mission is an activity and way of being that should serve us - mentally, physically, spiritually and, if we choose, financially.
- In serving us our Mission should be of service to others.
- In serving us and serving others our Mission should in some way contribute to the better good of the world.
Here are two quotes, the first is from Conversations with God (CWG) and the second from Friendship with God (FWG) by Neil Donald Walsch. Both beautifully define what Mission could be: - CWG - "It is the purpose of your Soul to announce and to declare, to be and to express, to experience and to fulfill Who You Really Are."
- FWG - "Remember that the purpose of life is to re-create yourself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Really Are".
Putting these together we can now create a definition of Mission that better serves us: - Mission is an activity, it is your expression of the next grandest version of the greatest vision you hold of Who You Really Are expressed in a way that serves you, serves the world and serves that which you may believe lies beyond.
You are Unique so is Your Mission
You are unique. You have a unique contribution to make to the planet and the people on it. You make this contribution when you choose to experience your life as an expression of who you really are and not a reflection of what people think you should be. When your life is an expression of who you really are you are living your Mission. Your Mission is your life's purpose or what the ancient Indian spiritual teaching of Vedanta calls Dharma. This teaching tells us: - You have unique talents and unique ways of expressing them.
- There are some things you can do better than anyone else in the whole world.
- For every unique talent you possess other people have unique needs.
- When these needs are matched with the creative expression of your talent you create unlimited wealth and abundance.
Mission Impossible
Your Mission may seem impossible to achieve, it may even seem impractical. This is because you are looking at it from where you are now and who you think you are now. If you trust in yourself and in your Mission then tomorrow, next week, next month or next year you are going to be a very different person and your experience of the world will be different too. Have the faith to take action in support of your Mission now even though you may not know what you are doing or why you are doing it. top of page previous page Prosperity
When we live our Mission in a courageous and creative way we experience fulfilment and prosperity. The people who need our unique talents will gladly pay us for them, if we have the courage to ask! We must be willing to ask and receive (usually in the form of money) for the contribution we are making. It is at this point for many of us conflict arises.  Many of us have been raised to believe there is something very un-spiritual about the desire for money. After all, how can we accept money from someone for doing something we really enjoy doing? Have you ever been curious about the word "compensation" when used in the context of receiving a paycheque? The dictionary definition is "money given as recompense". In other words we have suffered in some way and to compensate we are given money. You may think this is a play on words but these words and the meaning behind them are built into to the language we use.
Further conflict arises when you ask yourself "why should I be compensated for something I love doing?" and if you were raised to believe God is good and money is bad, to receive money for something remotely good, "Godly" or spiritual seems wrong. If we are unwilling to receive something of value for our service other people will perceive our service as having no value. We are not doing ourselves or anyone else any favours by undervaluing or not valuing our service. This does not mean we should be ruthless and never render a service free of charge. However it is very important we know the value of what we are offering. True Prosperity
Being prosperous is to be able to spend most of our time doing what is really important to us. To achieve this we need money. This is a crucial part of concept of Mission Coach and is part of Self Leadership. Prosperity is more than just money but it does not serve us to hide behind some new age philosophy which suggests we can experience prosperity without money, we can't - at least not in the western world. To many people the word "rich" would be the antithesis the word "God", "good" or "spiritual". These people prefer to use words like "prosperous" or "wealthy" because (we are told) we do not have to have money to feel prosperous or wealthy. Having no money beyond what is required to meet your survival needs is one way to live and it may serve a few to live this way but surely we are aiming to do more than just survive, this is your life we are talking about here! If you want to just make a living then a job (an acronym for "just over broke") will do the trick. If you are fully expressing your Mission, and sharing it with as many people as possible then true prosperity has to be a natural consequence of that action.  It is very rare to find someone who genuinely would prefer to be poor than rich. The belief that money is in someway un-spiritual is ridiculous and does not serve us in the world we live in. As welfare systems continue to be further stretched and on the verge of collapse, the safety nets we have enjoyed for the last 50 years (in the UK at least) are slowly getting smaller and are likely to disappear. To have a good understanding of money is now more essential than ever before. We need to develop a good relationship with money and our ability to acquire it is very important. We want us all to live in abundance not just survive in mediocrity or poverty.
The Value of Money
In itself money is nothing. You can't eat it, you can't drink and you can't breath it. Money has no value whatsoever unless it is moving. The good analogy for money is "money is the oil that lubricates the engine of the economy". If the oil stops flowing the engine will seize up even though there may be plenty of the oil in the engine. Another New Age belief is that money is energy, in as much as the nuclear structure of £50 note contains energy this is true. However the true value of money lies in it being a "symbol" for another human being to do something for you or give you something in exchange. In other words money is a symbol for the exchange of human energy. Only a human being will do something for money, money means nothing to every other species on the planet. Another popular myth is that money is in short supply - it isn't. Up until the 1940's every banknote printed in England had the equivalent amount of gold in the vaults of the Bank of England. This was called the Gold Standard. Governments of the day decided to get rid of the Gold Standard and since then have been free to print money without the need to underwrite the money with any tangible asset such as gold or silver. Added to this the advent of electronic transfer of funds and credit cards has meant that no physical entity in the form of a banknote appears anywhere, let alone a gold bar! If you find this hard to understand ask yourself this question "where was all the money on the planet today 100 years ago?" Money is an idea created by man. The idea we call money is swapped for a "tangible" asset e.g. something we can see and touch. It is only when this swap takes place that the money has any value. There is nothing we can really consider to be ours other than knowledge, food and drink. These are all things that in someway become part of us. Everything else, your car, your house and your cash are rented to you for the period you are here on the planet and you can't take them with you when you leave. Breaking the Cycle of Poverty Thinking
Not long ago poverty was considered a virtue ( by the church at least ). There is nothing virtuous or pleasant about a society trapped in the illusion of poverty. If we have a purpose in life could it be to help people who feel there is no way out of the poverty trap not by giving them hand out but by given them a hand up - if they are willing to accept it? To break the cycle of poverty that is afflicting many parts of the world we must first break the cycle of poverty thinking that creates it. If we can teach others to create wealth we are doing more far more than any charity is able to do regardless of the size of the handout. This is not just teaching a man to fish, this is teaching a man to become the sea. top of page previous page Openness
To be willing to be open as an adult requires courage. Children of course do not have this problem! As we mature into adults we develop a level of "sophistication" which is just another way of protecting ourselves from the social stigmas of embarrassment and rejection.  To be truly open is to have a child like curiosity about the world and the people in it. To be child like is to hold the state of curiosity and persistence that every healthy child has in abundance. The important thing here is to know we do not know and to be comfortable with it. In this space of openness we permit ourselves to learn, we are open to guidance and constrained only by our purpose in life - our Mission.
Don't Follow the Crowd
Most of us believe if a large number of people are doing something then this is probably the "right" thing to do. Sometimes this is referred to as "social proof". Earl Nightingale (broadcaster and founder of the Nightingale Connant Corporation) said "If you don't want to make decisions for yourself and you want to be right most of the time then don't follow the crowd. Follow the one or two people moving in the opposite direction to the crowd and you probably won't make another mistake in your life!" Our world is changing rapidly. People who are adaptable, flexible and open thrive in the environment of change because change brings with it abundant opportunity and the opportunity for abundance. People who choose to ignore change find themselves in a herd of other people who also resist change. In this herd only mediocrity and stagnation flourishes. Being Open to New Ways of Thinking
Be open to changing beliefs and ways of thinking that no longer serve you. Any organisation or organism that does not adapt to a changing environment will ultimately be replaced by something that does. Coping with change requires the openness and acceptance that you do not need to know exactly what is going to happen and you do not need to have all the answers in order to prosper. The world is going to be a very, very different place 20 years from now and the pace of change is increasing. Be open to the possibility that ideas we consider to be far out or maybe even crazy now will be excepted as normal at some point in the future. See also the sections on Beliefs and Belief Modelling on this web site. top of page previous page Trust
We grow and evolve by stepping into the unknown. As babies we have no concept of the unknown because at that time of life everything is unknown and we don't know we don't know. As we become older and more sophisticated we know we don't know. In the society we currently find ourselves in it is not "cool" to be naïve or admit we don't know something. As we evolve  there are occasions when we have to accept we do not have the vaguest idea of what we are doing or even why we are doing it! At these times we need to trust ourselves and have faith in our Mission. Engaging with the Universe
We do not know exactly how the Universe will respond to any action we take in service of our Mission until we engage with it. Neither you, nor anyone else knows enough to know that what you are doing cannot be done! The only way you find out for certain is by doing it. The only way we are going to take the action is to trust in ourselves, trust in your Mission and trust in the guidance we are receive through synchronicities, events and intuition. Remember these words from Goethe:
"Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. Whatever you do or dream you can - begin it now." Taking a Risk
Risk implies a degree of unpredictability about the outcome of taking an action. Often the label of "failure" is used to describe ourselves and other people when we do something that does not work out as planned. Like every other word in our language the word "failure" has the emotional charge we have been taught to give it. The key to overcoming failure is to stop using the word "failure"! Ted Nicholas the American direct marketing guru talks about "testing". Despite his years of marketing experience he does not know how people will respond to a marketing campaign until he sees the response he gets. This principle of testing applies to us as we live our Mission. Often we have no idea how the Universe is going to react until we "test" it with an action inspired by our Mission.  Risk is the bridge between who you are now and who you really, really want to be. Trust is the only vehicle that can cross the bridge of risk and this can be pretty tough when we see the majority are heading in the opposite direction! Trust you are heading in the right direction for you. Be open to the possibility you are the only person heading in that direction at this time and there will be more coming later! Be open to the possibility a direction appearing to be "wrong" is "right" given time.
The Illusion of Security
Taking risks threatens our sense of security. Security is a state we experience when the needs we consider essential to our well being are met. Many of us chase an illusion of security through the illusion of a "secure" job and the predictability of a regular income. The illusion of job security is born of many years of well intentioned advice from a generation for whom a secure job was a possibility. But those days are long gone. Security has always been an illusion. No one can predict exactly what is going to happen tomorrow. The greatest security we can have is to trust ourselves to handle any situation we find ourselves in. Susan Jeffers in her book "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" suggests we use the affirmation "Whatever happens - I'll handle it!". You have succeeded in handling every situation so far otherwise you wouldn't be reading this! top of page previous page Awareness
As human beings we have a unique role on this planet. Not only can we act instinctively we can also give meaning to the events we experience. A healthy person will instinctively pull their hand away from a hot surface. We do not have to be taught how to do this, even as a baby the instinct will be to stop the pain. Animals do this too. Making Meaning of Events
 Unlike animals we can give meaning to this event such as "Why didn't he tell me this was hot - the man's an idiot!". This may be a bit extreme but if someone put a plate in front of you that had just come out of the oven it might be a valid interpretation of this event. Most of us respond to an event totally unconsciously never questioning how or why we give a particular meaning to our experience. To think about why we think the thoughts we do is to be aware. We all operate at different levels of awareness. To be truly aware is to be able to take a step back and to see ourselves responding and knowing why - this is self-awareness or self-witnessing. We filter and distort incoming information because it is our nature to want to prove ourselves "right". We look very hard to find information that supports our current point of view. We filter out or ignore information that does not support our point of view. To be truly aware we must trust we are safe allowing information in unfiltered by what we have been conditioned to believe. Our conditioning is the result of a combination of factors including our beliefs and values handed to us when we were too young to choose whether to accept or reject them. To be truly aware is to know what our beliefs and values are and to know they may have to change in order to better serve our Mission. Remaining Unattached
The more aware we are the more unattached we are from any situation, person or event. We see the bigger picture and realise all the events in the Universe are unfolding perfectly regardless of how they may appear at the time. When we are aware we are the observer of our own evolution. We look for changes in ourselves and in our ways of doing things. We notice how the problems that occur most often have some connection with our Mission almost as if overcoming the problem is another step towards living our Mission. top of page previous page Intuition
We are all naturally intuitive but many of us do not feel comfortable demonstrating it. Like a muscle, intuition becomes stronger the more we use it. Intuition can be both inspiration and guidance. When we let go of the filters blocking our natural intuition we are a very efficient channel for inspiring and guiding thoughts.  When we do allow our intuition to come through we are often over analytical with the information we receive. Instead of following through on an intuitive thought, the thought and the moment are lost in the paralysis of analysis. We give intuition a low priority as we immerse ourselves in a way of life that has little space for intuitive thinking. But isn't inspired thought the source of most of the world's greatest discoveries?
Sources of Intuition
Synchronicity or "meaningful coincidence" is one of the most significant and fun ways inspiration and guidance comes to us. By using our awareness we give the synchronicity meaning. Synchronicities can be easily dismissed as "just a coincidence" which of course they are. However, if we live in a Universe where every effect has a cause then something or someone has created this coincidence and that someone could be us. Another form of intuition is the "hunch" or inspired thought. Hunches are like dreams, they fade very quickly if we do not pay attention to them. Often a hunch will send us in completely the opposite direction to logic. Accidents and mistakes are another source of inspiration and guidance. Many great inventions were the result of breaking the usual pattern of doing things by doing something "wrong" which led to a new combination of events and to a new discovery. Our Intuition is an expression of the inspiration and guidance coming through us from the Universal Force. Our Creativity is an expression of our Intuition. Our Mission is an expression of our Creativity.
When we are in tune with the Universal Force it is impossible to "fail". This Force can never fail and seeks only to expand life and express itself more fully. When we are fully aligned with our Mission and we are using our intuition to Guide us then the living our Mission is unavoidable. Tuning In
Inspiration rarely comes while focusing intently on an issue with our rational, logical mind. Inspiration occurs most frequently when relaxed or we have moved away from the issue and our attention is elsewhere. Inspiration needs a quietened internal dialogue (we stop talking to ourselves) for the inspired thought to find a gap to come through. Could it be there is such a thing as the "collective unconscious" that Carl Jung spoke of? This is the space we can tap into to access the Universal Mind where all that is to be known is known. Geniuses like Mozart were thought to have access to this Universal Mind. He was able to hear complete works of music "all at once". Using his intuition and genius for music he allowed the Universal Force to express itself through him in the form of music. Some writers and artists do the same thing. top of page previous page Creativity
Creativity is the fuel that drives our Mission. Our creative mind is boundless, limitless and indefinable. Our Mission is the expression of our unique creativity. When we fully live our Mission, fulfilment and prosperity are inevitable. If we are to free ourselves from the restrictions of the competitive mind we must demonstrate how, by using our creativity, we can have an infinitely more fulfilling and prosperous life. Abundance Thinking
Creative thinking is knowing we have the creativity and innovation to consistently create ideas that are unique to us and knowing we will always find people who need our ideas. Abundance thinking is knowing if we do have competition there is sufficient demand for all to thrive or we have the skills and motivation to exercise our creativity in new markets. The creative mind knows there is enough for everyone. This form of creativity is in harmony with the Universe and our true creative expression is never at the expense another person, the planet or the environment it is always in harmony with it.  Our creativity is a unique gift. Our creativity is an expression of the Universal energy moving through us to become manifest in our world. To be grateful for this unique gift is to acknowledge ourselves as being the channel not the Source of our creativity. By doing this we become more open to the Source. When we realise that creativity is a matter of tapping into the source with our intuition and remaining tapped in we realise creativity is not the result of extreme effort. Creativity is a result of being more in tune with the Source.
Thoughts Create Things
If you knew your every thought had the power to manifest what you were thinking about what would you do differently? You would be very careful what you thought about for a start! Be open to the possibility your thoughts have creative power. Be open to the possibility the form in which your thoughts are becoming manifest could be different from what you asked for or expect! Creativity is unpredictable in both time and form. Be open and non-attached to results and allow the creative process to take place.
top of page previous page Gratitude
Gratitude or appreciation is both the starting and ending point for turning Self Leadership. When we are in the state of gratitude we are creating the environment for prosperity, openness, trust, awareness, intuition and creativity to evolve. This is not the "God fearing" type of gratitude we have been told is to be given in order that some unseen deity will look upon us more kindly. Do you really believe the Creator of our Universe is so small that it becomes angry when we don't say "thank you" for something? To believe our Creator would act in this way is to be believe our Creator is no more than the petty tyrants that fill the Bible and our history books.  Being grateful is to acknowledge ourselves as the co-creators of our Universe and all we experience in it, including our problems! If you find this hard to believe cast your mind back to events which you thought at the time were disastrous and turned out to be a "blessing in disguise". Is it possible with the passage of time all our problems are blessings in disguise?
Gratitude is Knowing
What would it be like to know that your every desire is instantly granted even before you ask for it and all you have to do is take action to receive it? Action is the process of doing what you need to do to become the person you need to be to receive what you have asked for. To become this person you may have to learn (or unlearn!) something by overcoming situations you previously called problems. Now you clearly see these problems as stepping stones to becoming the person you really want to be. Living in gratitude is to know this to be true. Gratitude is not about giving false appreciation. Gratitude is knowing if the garden of our mind has weeds we have allowed the weeds to grow to give ourselves the opportunity to learn how to remove them! Gratitude is seeing and being grateful for the opportunity to learn. By learning to overcome our problems we become the person we truly want to be. | 