Welcome to Week 48 of the Authenticity@Work Leadership Tool-kit! My intention for this series is to share a quick tool each week to help you lead with more authenticity, adaptability and inspiration so we can together create workplaces where we bring the best of ourselves and inspire others. So grab a journal and an accountability partner to make these practices even more powerful for you!
In last week’s post we talked about the courage for bold action in small steps. What did you learn from the five steps to practice courage?
It’s the pursuit of the dream that matters, not waiting until we have all the facts or are guaranteed success before we start. It’s the passion for an idea that captures our imagination. And in doing so, we are willing to overcome barriers and stretch ourselves outside our comfort zones—and when we fail, we try again. As we pursue our dreams, we inspire others who share them. We create a tribe of inspired supporters, advocates, and dreamers who work together to make the dream a reality.
Our dreams are our life. Moving and dancing with our dreams is essential to our authenticity because through the pursuit of our dreams, we have the ability to see and express who we really are and reach toward our potential.
Human beings are wired for self-expression. It’s in our DNA. Every single person deserves to dream—indeed needs to dream—for his or her well-being.
Here are three reasons why we don’t dance with our dreams:
- We don’t know what ignites us. We either don’t take the time or aren’t able to pinpoint our passion. Focus them on the here and now. What do you enjoy? What activities do you lose yourself in? What are your peak experiences? What’s your vision of a better world? Focus on what’s happening now that ignites you.
- We separate our work from our dream. By separating our work from our dreams, we both lose—our workplaces because they don’t benefit from the power of our full engagement, and ourselves because we are not refueling ourselves at work with the power of our dreams.
- We let our fears be bigger than our dreams. When we dream big it causes all kinds of fear to emerge. We can take an all-or-nothing approach to our dreams. When we take an all-or-nothing approach, we are either paralyzed with fear and doubts of how we will support ourselves with our passion or we take an uncalculated plunge, quit the job, and wait to be discovered.
This Week’s Tool:
Question to ask yourself:
- Close your eyes and imagine your most inspired self. Who are you being? What you doing? What are you creating? What is your impact on others? Write down this dream in your journal. Share it with a friend or your accountability partner.
- What is one small step you can take to move toward your dream (for example, share your dream with a friend and ask him or her to help you take a small step towards it.)
- Create a vision board about your dream. Find some magazines. Without analyzing, just pick out pictures that inspire you. What do these pictures tell you about your dream? Next, find pictures that reflect the people or qualities that inspire you. Next, find pictures that embody the bigger person you are becoming to pursue the bigger dream.
- Alternately, join an online forum called Pinterest and create your “My Dream” board. Find the Pinterest board under my name to see my dream.
- Share your board with friends to inspire them to create theirs. Our dreams need support and when we support others dreams so much more is possible.
Get the latest resources for Authenticity@Work (this tab will get updated with all kinds of cool resources). Curious to know more about the book? Read the reviews about Wired for Authenticity here.
