Start Now: 5 Steps to Unleashing Your Peak Potential In 2024

Leadership in 2024 will require your next level of resilience, navigating challenges and uncertainty with a positive mindset, emotional strength, and agility.  McKinsey recently named resilience as the top focus at The World Economic Forum’s 2024 conference in Davos in Switzerland. 

Below are the 5 steps you need to take to overcome adversity in the workplace as a woman in leadership and navigate uncertainty and change with ease.

Step 1:  Evaluate Your Network.  We often hear that your network is your net worth and when it comes to strengthening your resiliency, this remains true.  You are the product of the top five people around you so ask yourself these questions  :

●     Are they empathetic in times of a setback? 

●     Do they encourage you to advocate for yourself?

●     Do they provide some comic relief as you navigate challenging situations? Harvard Business Review reminds us about the eight common relational sources of resilience that our personal value set may align with such as empathy, humor, purpose, perspective, vision, pushback, politics, and work surge.

Evaluate your trusted connections based on your top three personal values to feel a sense of fulfillment and understanding.

Step 2:  Establish and Commit To Your Vision Of Impact.  When you commit to creating an impact in this world that is outward-focused and beyond inward gain, your way of being must shift your way of being to one of curiosity, generosity, and servitude. 

Not feeling soul-inspired by your work right now?  Pay attention to this sign that there may be a greater calling in your life.  Get curious, explore it!  As Dr. Ahron Freidberg mentions in Psychology Today, “Your path forward is in knowing yourself.”  As you align your heart and mind, your vision will become more apparent, revealing your soul’s most meaningful life mission.

Your flow as a leader will open and life will become much easier, no matter the challenging circumstances when you balance logic with your servant leadership’s desires.

Step 3:   Know Your Worth.  Contrary to many beliefs, confidence is not something that we’re innately born with.  This is a skill set that is refined by overcoming challenges and learning to embrace failure as an opportunity to learn and grow.  When we release expectations of perfectionism and we start to notice our impact, our self-belief grows which in turn, builds outward confidence and self-esteem. According to a research study conducted by Gitnux, over 93% of people believe that confidence is critical to professional success, and over 80% report struggling with it.  Low self-esteem can lead to negative behavior and lower salaries (average $8,000 lower salary).

Here is how you can coach yourself through self-doubt, fear, and procrastination:

If you start to see a cycle of procrastination or lengthy decision-making, ask yourself, “What am I fearing right now?”  Fear and anxiety will always constrict your energy, and your ability to focus, communicate with clarity, and make decisions.  Cut through the noise by building your self-worth in a daily 5-minute journaling practice.

Your homework: Reflect upon the previous day and recognize the impact you made in the world, on your team or with your spouse, family or friends.  You matter but you’ll only start to believe it yourself when you spend a few moments to step out of the busyness and into gratitude and reflection of the impact you’re actually making.

Step 3:  Take Courageous Action.  Want to be in the top 1%?  No one gets there by sitting on the sidelines, you must take courageous actions that are in alignment with your vision.  The top performers rarely make it just on skill but on their ability to release fear and step into courage.  They are so committed to their vision that they stay committed to courageous action each and every day. This may include: making a cold call to an executive, asking for the deal, making an investment, hiring, public speaking, writing, and serving without expecting anything in return.  Only you can define what courageous action means to you but growth is not interested in your comfort, so get uncomfortable!

Step 4:  Increase Your Circle Of Emotional Tolerance.  While taking action is important, emotional agility to navigate change and uncertainty is extremely important in business right now. Build your resiliency muscle by increasing your circle of emotional tolerance as a leader today by learning how to feel emotion vs. neglecting it.  Many high achievers have developed a muscle of strong will and can outwork anyone but according to research by Hope University many people who may have grown up in emotionally neglectful environments can struggle with conditions like anxiety and depression. A great way to build your emotional tolerance and overall resilience is to learn how to process emotions. The more you can release emotions of fear, anxiety, stress, guilt, and shame during the day, you will enable yourself to take on higher levels of decision-making and increase productivity. When we are reactive to our emotions, we are allowing them to lead us which drains our energy. An example is people pleasing. 

As a former professional people pleaser myself, I would subconsciously try to mitigate any chaos in my life, even if it meant sabotaging my own needs as a professional and working parent.  How sweet right? Wrong!  Behavior like this only deteriorates our mental and physical well-being over time.  Learning how to process emotions as neutral events will help you release layers of pent-up emotion and energy that no longer serve you, giving you more capacity to pour into others.

Step 5:  Tap Into High Flow State.  Flow state as defined by the National Library of Medicine is the experience of motivation with effortless flow that is associated with job performance, work engagement, and well-being. The ability to release your control as a leader will enable you to focus more on activities aligned with your vision, and produce more results in less time enabling you to integrate work and personal life more effectively.  Imagine taking a typical 8.5-hour day and decreasing it by 2 hours while giving yourself emotional, physical, and spiritual breaks throughout the day.  You’ll see a massive transformation in your potential when you eliminate hustle habits and learn how to integrate rest and recovery time into your day.

Your past does not define you and your most meaningful life calling is here now.  Don’t wait for it to find you, create it.

Amy Looper is a Transformational Coach, Speaker, and Founder of the Resilient Growth Unleashed, personal development program. She is the author of Leading Motherhood: Surrendering To Faith Over Fear From the Delivery Room To Board Room after surviving c-PTSD after several traumas experienced in early-stage motherhood while climbing the corporate sales ladder. Connect with Amy Looper on LinkedIn.

This article was originally featured in the Take The Lead blog.