Living a Story & Leading a Life: Three Ways to Shape Our Present and Future
Belief in our Own Self-Efficacy Key to Our Experiences
Image by Max Saeling from Unsplash
At points, we feel disengagement in our workplaces, our homes, and in our schools. Marketing, social media, the pandemic, cultural divides, and our brisk pace of life contribute to these challenges. Feelings of disconnection can also be the result of choices that don’t align with who or what we aspire to be.
Making choices that align with our values requires that we accept responsibility for our lives and accept our personal agency — that is, we must accept that we are the primary subjects influencing our actions and life circumstances.
Efficacy beliefs (beliefs that we can produce desired results by our actions) are the foundation of personal agency. Making choices that align with who we aspire to be also require leadership. Leadership is fundamental, and what’s more fundamental than leadership is self-leadership.
Living a Story & Leading a Life
We make daily decisions that determine who we are, who we will be, where we’ll go, and how we will get there. Beyond making decisions and leading ourselves, we are also leading others. We are all called at points to lead in the workplace, within a team, in the classroom, and in our families and neighborhoods. Well-executed leadership requires self-awareness and a leaders-eat-last mindset. Leadership is about choices, caring, examining what is, taking responsibility, and serving the greater good. Leadership sounds like a tall order but we engage in leadership every day.
Each of us is leading a life and living a story. The question is, are we living stories that align with who we aspire to be? If we are spectators in life and move through our days with a “whatever” mindset, if we look for reasons why X, Y, and Z didn’t or won’t happen, or if we engage in ongoing unhealthy behaviors, those choices are shaping the lives we lead and the stories we live. Whether we choose to be positive participants in life or laissez-faire bystanders, we are shaping and leading our lives. Accepting responsibility for ourselves, owning our choices, and cultivating our personal agency and self-efficacy are key to leadership and self-leadership. Belief in our own self-efficacy paves the way to shaping our experiences, our relationships, our academic, personal & career pursuits, and the ways we serve others. Stories typically include a Protagonist, an Antagonist, a Victim, a Foil, a Guide, and various side characters. Each of us leads a life and lives a story. The question is which roles are you playing?
Every person is an amazing combination of strengths, experiences, insights, power and potential. We can build belief in ourselves (self-efficacy) and actively shape our present and future by working in three primary areas of self-development:
Work to increase internal and external self-awareness. Internal self-awareness involves recognition of our own values and aspirations. External self-awareness involves our attunement to how others view and experience us. Research shows that people with high external self-awareness are more empathetic, and are regarded as having more broad and inclusive perspectives.
Take responsibility for words, choices, and behavior. When all is said and done, the place where we must all begin is with ourselves. Taking responsibility for the language we use, the company we keep, our decisions and actions is key to building self-efficacy. What to do? Stop complaining. To the extent possible, leave blame and the past behind. Stick with the present and look forward to the future with a penchant toward gratitude and action. Assume the best. Look for what is lifting, what helps, what’s working, what’s good.
Prioritize Consistency — People seek what is dependable and consistent. They want consistent work, good health, positive reviews, consistent friendships, and they like things to be in place where and when expected. At the same time, few people behave with on-the-money consistency when it comes to attending to exercise, paperwork, deadlines, adequate sleep, etc.. Make it a maxim to show up day in and day out and do what is to be done when it’s time. Consistency can have hugely positive effect on our ability to shape our present and future, and huge effect on our sense of personal agency and self-efficacy.
In summary, shaping our present and our future is about choices, responsibility, our sense of our own self-efficacy, and leadership. Leadership is the choice to positively manage ourselves as we look out and care for those around us, and serve something beyond ourselves. We each lead a life and live a story, and have the tools to shape our present and future.