It’s another fantastic Monday, friends! And welcome to a beautiful week of opportunities.
Before I go ahead, I want to ask how you spent your weekend. Of course, you enjoyed the red and rosy weekend with all that love sharing and Valentine’s sparkles that decorated your weekend.
I really hope you had fun, connected with loved ones, received love, shared love and, most importantly, took very good care of yourself.
Valentine’s Day may be about roses and gifts, but deeper, it’s a season where we are reminded of the importance of relationships in our lives. It’s when we can evaluate our lives and see if we truly have relationships we value and make recommitments where we need to.
Last week, we examined emotional intelligence. If you’ve been following the discussion, you should by now have the basic idea of emotional intelligence.
Two core competencies make up emotional intelligence: personal competence and social competence. Emotional intelligence is basically about how we understand and control our emotions and how we can understand the emotions of others and react/respond intelligently.
Today, we’ll explore the importance of determination and resilience in leadership.
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Leadership Is Hard
“Success is not the absence of failure; it is persistence through failure.”
Aisha Tyler.
The leader’s journey will never be a bed of roses (even roses have thorns).
Many gifted, qualified, and talented leaders have abandoned their leadership posts and destinies because they couldn’t stand failure, disappointments and betrayal.
Becoming a leader means exposing yourself to so many things in life, both good, bad, and ugly. While we enjoy the good things that come our way, we must also be ready to face the bad and ugly.
Let me ask a straightforward question.
Can you remember the most discouraging moments of your life or career?
Pause, take a deep breath, and think about it…
Or, maybe you’re currently in a challenging period of your life or career.
Are you thinking of quitting or throwing in the towel? Running away?
It happens to the best of us. When we meet a tall brick wall on our path to progress or encounter a mountain or a valley, the first impression, especially if we are new to challenges, is to turn back and run away.
Running away or giving up doesn’t help. This is where the virtues of determination and resilience come into play.
Determination Is A Virtue All Leaders Must Possess
In today’s world, many things can prevent you from achieving your potential as a leader.
- Cultural hurdles.
- Bad economics.
- Ill health.
- Bad friends.
- Marital problems.
- Toxic workplace.
- Unsupportive family.
The list goes on and on.
And we can do nothing to stop these things from trying to stop us. The only thing we can do is grow bigger than them and realise the importance of our destinies as leaders.
Determination is about having the courage to push through no matter what.
It’s like walking in a storm. You might not even see where to take your next step, but you keep pushing forward! You keep pressing on, taking the next step and the next step. Taking those steps might be hard, painful and difficult, but you keep going. Your vision is your fuel, the person you’re becoming, and the goal is before you. You keep weathering the storm!
Show me a great leader who never went through challenges and difficulties. I have never heard of anyone.
To a leader, going through challenges can be likened to firing clay.
For clay to become hard, it must go through intense heat. The clay doesn’t have a choice. There’s no other way to become hard. It must endure great heat to come out strong and refined.
Leaders who run away from challenges will never have the mental strength to become great leaders. It takes more to become a great leader. It goes beyond labels and titles; it’s about the content of your person.
Resistance Is Real
Resistance will kill you if you don’t fight back.
Resistance is that silent force in the shadow that deceptively tries to prevent you from doing the most important things as a leader.
It’s the force that amplifies challenges and can kill your determination if you allow it.
It’s resistance that makes you procrastinate and slumber some more or waste some productive time doing useless things that don’t add to your growth as a leader.
Resistance is that silent assassin that sneaks up at you at night and tries to snuff the life out of your productivity with a pillow.
Most of the time, you won’t even know you’re under the burden of resistance until you discover you’ve wasted precious time and haven’t done anything tangible or important.
If you discover that you lack determination, it may be a sign that you’re succumbing to resistance.
How To Overcome Resistance
ACTION! MASSIVE ACTION!
Some days ago, while writing, I suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired and uninterested in what I was doing.
If you’re creative or own your own business, this is something that can happen to you at any time.
When that feeling came, it was as if I should close my laptop and start watching something on my phone.
I didn’t even feel like reading or studying, which I do when I get tired of writing. And that project I was writing was very important.
I could have just succumbed to that resistance, but instead, I pushed myself through it by doing what? Simple, working and walking through it.
In no time, I got my muse back and completed the project.
It’s easy to cave in and look for excuses.
We don’t understand that a bit of resistance here and there will dilute our energy and kill our determination.
Now, this is the resistance that comes from within. What about the one that comes from outside?
Rejection, ridicule, insults, toxic criticism, and annoying people are just a few examples of the obstacles that can hinder your journey towards becoming a leader if allowed.
And how do you overcome external resistance? You close your eyes and ears and keep moving! If you try to meditate on these things, you’ll discover that you’re not paying attention to the great things you’ve done or can do as a leader.
Forget about them and keep moving.
Leaders who stop and try to give some attention to external resistance are caught by its deceptiveness. Like a web, they are entangled and can’t move ahead because it takes time and more energy to get yourself free from the entanglement of resistance. It’s like a bug or quicksand. You walk into it and slowly begin to sink. If nothing is done fast, you may be buried quickly.
To close our discussion on determination.
Listen to these words by Jim Rohn:
“Each of us has two distinct choices to make about what we will do with our lives. The first choice we can make is to be less than we have the capacity to be. To earn less. To have less. To read less and think less. To try less and discipline ourselves less…”
We have the power in our hands to push through resistance, wear the robe of determination, and match through any form of obstacle standing in our way. It’s a choice.
“…These are the choices that lead to an empty life. These are the choices that, once made, lead to a life of constant apprehension instead of a life of wondrous anticipation…”
You see, nobody actually cares about you (except me). Your greatness is your business, and if you don’t live up to your potential, nobody will even know, even though you will shortchange us of the wonderful things your life would have given us.
“…And the second choice? To do it all! To become all that we can possibly be. To read every book that we possibly can. To earn as much as we possibly can. To strive and produce and accomplish as much as we possibly can. All of us have the choice. To do or not to do. To be or not to be. To be all or to be less or to be nothing at all.”
Look at your palms. Yes. The power to change your life lives there.
Next week, we will look at the importance of resilience in leadership.
Catch you next Monday.
Have a wonderful week!
