Five Essential Strategies to Empower Yourself and Take Positive Action in Today’s Complicated World

The COVID-19 pandemic is a warning which has exposed our greatest vulnerabilities and has demonstrated how humanity could be wiped out from the face of the earth – or significantly reduced – before we even know it.

A root cause of much of what’s happening in the world today is simply bad leadership, which has now been around for a long time and we must pay attention to it.

In 2017 we had a leadership crisis which I called the three Ds of leadership (distrust, doubt and dissent). At the time, traditional leadership approaches were no longer working because the game was changing and people had had enough.

Regrettably, today, we are in a worst situation than we were then. We’re witnessing self-serving, hypocritical, irresponsible and pernicious leadership. Democracies are being threatened across the globe. 

While it is somehow hard to believe that this is happening, it’s actually true! And we need to face reality!

Bad leadership, however, is only one side of the coin. The current state of affairs can only be balanced or corrected with strong self-leadership and “intelligent and disobedient followership”.  

Moving from Conformity Toward Autonomy

Currently, far too many people are living their lives adjusting their willingness and abilities to the point that they subjugate or relinquish their will, personal power and identity. They live a conformist lifestyle to obtain optimal materialistic profit by trading the most precious capacities that makes them unique and independent human beings (e.g. critical thinking, skills, character, and ethics). The consequences of this are devastating. 

When we do this, we weaken and alienate ourselves from our true self. This means we suppress our needs and authentic wishes. We disempower ourselves! It is no wonder that many people today feel anxious and depressed.   

Below, I outline five fundamental individual strategies, which are under our personal control, to manage the current state of affairs by empowering us to drive and sustain positive change. 

1.     Become an Intelligent and Disobedient Follower

Sometimes, loyalty to a leader is overrated and can be dangerous. So, first and foremost, never, never, never be a blind follower. Instead, aim to be an Intelligent and Disobedient Follower. This requires intelligence, independence, courage, along with a strong sense of identity, values and ethics.

It also means that before you can follow anyone, you have to become your own leader by developing strong self-leadership. 

2.     Develop Strong Self-leadership and Self-Coaching

Self-leadership is the capability to achieve the direction, motivation, and resilience to positively influence and sustain your own performance. Effective self-leadership entails many capabilities and there are many interrelated terms to describe it. These are some: self-awareness, self-identity, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-influence, self-control, self-motivation, self-direction, self-empowerment, and self-management. 

Self-coaching is the ability to see yourself as “in progress,” and to learn and reflect in ways that will cultivate your own self-awareness, and to bring attention yourself as an observer, an actor, and a responder in this world.

3.     Be a Strong Critical Thinker

Being a strong critical thinker means to:

• Use your ability to reason by being an active learner rather than a passive recipient of information.
• Question others’ ideas, opinions, and assumptions rather than accepting them at face value.
• Determine whether the ideas, arguments, propositions, and findings of others represent the entire picture. If not, be prepared to find out why.
• Inform yourself properly by questioning your sources and using social media wisely. For an insightful review on the power and perils of social media, check ‘The Social Dilemma’s Tristan Harris on How to Make Social Media Less Addictive.

You can watch the full documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’ on Netflix Official Site.

4.     Refrain from Being a People Pleaser at All Cost

People pleasing is extremely problematic. It leads to conditions such as depression, anxiety and extreme stress, and erodes self-esteem. In fact, it’s one of the most common presentations I find in my practice as a psychotherapist. And it’s not always easy to overcome. 

Below, I outline ten indicators that will tell you if you’re trying too hard and too frequently to please others.

1. Pretend to agree with others.
2. Feel responsible for how others feel.
3. Feel uncomfortable if someone is angry at you.
4. Go to an extraordinary length to avoid conflict.
5. Act like (mimic or imitate) the people around you.
6. Need praise from others to feel good most of the time.
7. Cannot to say “no” to others or find it extremely difficult.
8. Apologise and smile way too often and for no real reason.
9. Don’t admit when you’re hurt and find it difficult to assert yourself.
10. Feel stressed with too many things to do, or commitments to keep, most of the time.

Engaging in psychotherapy is the best way to stop being a people pleaser.

5.     Be Authentic and Cultivate Authentic Living

Authentic living entails:

• Choosing to be yourself, rather than being popular.
• Being true to yourself in most situations.
• Always standing by what you believe in.
• Deflecting external influences.
• Avoiding self-alienation.
• Living in accordance with your values, beliefs, and ethical standards.

Self-reflection and Reality Check

The nine questions below can assist you to determine how you are tracking in relation to the above.

Do you:

•  Feel alienated from yourself?
• Let anyone tell you what to do?
• Feel out of touch with the ‘real you’?
• Don’t know how you really feel inside?
• Feel other people influence you greatly?
• Feel as if you don’t know yourself very well?
• Allow the opinions of others to influence you?
• Feel you need to do what others expect you to do?
• Feel more anxious, depressed or stressed than you would like to? 

©Sebastian Salicru, author, psychologist, psychotherapist, PCC (Professional Certified Coach), facilitator, and author of Leadership Results: How to Create Adaptive Leaders and High-performing Organisations for an Uncertain World (Wiley, 2017)