As soon as you move into a position of leadership your relationship with others will change. Your (new) team members and those you report to will place who you are and what you do under a magnifying glass. And so will you! The pressure is on. You want to do well. “Don’t mess this up!” 

When I mention the title of our leadership program the reactions can be divided into two categories. One group loves the title Waking your Warrior and can immediately identify with it. The other group starts to frown, leans back and says “I don’t think the world needs more fighters, do you?” And to be clear about that: No, I definitely don’t think we do!

So why then do we want to challenge the warrior in you? And what, from our perspective, creates this division in the responses?

Your day is busy. You get out of bed and hit the road running. It’s important to stay focused to get it all accomplished. You eat at your desk, again. Work spills into home when you make dinner, do the dishes, then take care of some emails before going to bed. For most of the day you’re in your head, thinking about the things you have to do, wondering if the things you do are good enough. And the next day… it is the same. And over time, you sense that you’ve lost connection with yourself. You might feel drained, indecisive and deflated.

It is not a big surprise that we lose touch with ourselves. The fact that you are reading this article makes it more then likely that you are part of the complex social work environment of appointments, responsibilities and concerns we live in. Everyday life makes our attention get caught up in thought, judgment, expectations, decision making and other stressors. It leaves us no time to attend to ourselves.

So let me ask you this question. When was the last time you checked in with yourself? When did you consciously feel your feet on the floor? Your breath moving in and out? The tightness in your shoulders and neck? How often do you ask yourself what would be the word that best described how you are feeling at that moment?

A friend, who is in an emotionally challenging time after ending his relationship, send me a message after a difficult conversation with his ex-partner. He said: ‘Remember our conversation about how to encounter difficult situations with love? Tonight I practiced again: setting my ego and beliefs aside and focusing on seeing the other. It was not easy, but every time I succeeded it opened up things that were better for the both of us.’