1 October 2017

Empowerment. Are you empowered? Personal empowerment involves developing the confidence and strength to set realistic goals and fulfil your potential. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and a range of skills that are used in everyday situations, but all too often people remain unaware of, or undervalue, their true abilities.

Most of us don’t feel empowered because we don’t take the steps to feel and to be so. Maybe these 10 steps can help.

1. Start from where you are and take one step at a time. This IS the ONLY place you CAN start. Begin by objectively understanding your current reality - strengths, resources and possibilities.
2. Reflect on your limitations – things that bring you down. Irritations and peeves. Problems. And think: Why is this bothering me? Why is it a problem? Is this something I need to learn? Or get over with?
3. Accept that what you are experiencing and feeling is appropriate for YOU [and only YOU] and it is connected with your need to grow.
4. Stop thinking about others – don’t worry yourself if they are receiving more, getting more, enjoying more. It is useless and a waste of time and energy. Spend the time focused on yourself.
5. Understand that it doesn’t matter what happened to you or who did it to you and what only matters IS what you do about it. You can’t change the past or the current situation and what counts is what you do NOW in order to move forward.
6. Train yourself to suspend judgement and accept things for what they are. How often in conversation do you find yourself mentally correcting, criticizing, or re-phrasing? when you do, you risk missing the real message which may not be in the words themselves. Rather than saying to yourself, "that's inaccurate" or "he/she is wrong", try accepting the statement as simply a representation of the way that person thinks, feels or what he/she intends to convey.
7. Be sensitive and learn to be open to other possibilities that are always there.
There are always MORE ways than ONE to solve a problem so be open to it.
8. Let it go. We all have “unfinished business” from our past – these are failures, a relationship gone sour, or responsibility where we failed. It’s not easy to just forget these but this might help: (1) Acknowledge the wrong, mistake, or failure, (2) Admit it to yourself and the other person. If this is no longer possible, admit it to yourself and write to the other person. If possible send it. If not, share the story with someone you trust and (3) Move ON. You've admitted your mistake, taken whatever corrective action you could, and now it's time to go forward. This third step takes discipline, but it works.
9. When faced with a hopeless situation, take action however small. Small steps take you farther than no action.
10. Consider the possibility of doing nothing – for the mean time, so that you get a better perspective and can take more appropriate action later.