5 Step Personal Development Process
Becoming a Leader: Challenge #2–Maintaining confidence during setbacks
Don’t confuse setbacks with failures–and, by all means, don’t confuse setbacks with you being a failure. When you have a setback, take a step back. Learn from what went wrong, assess other perspectives, and recommit to yourself.
In Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey offers the 7th Habit: Sharpen the Saw. Of course, Covey wasn’t talking literally about a saw (unless of course you are a lumberjack). He was referring to you taking time to work on you. Sometimes that means developing a latent skill, rethinking an idea, or recommitting to your strengths.
Setbacks are going to occur. Turn them around and use the time to do something even better. A setback is the perfect time to sharpen the saw. Use setbacks as opportunities to prevent outright failures.
Becoming a Leader: Talent #2–Challenge your Beliefs, Perceptions, and Interpretations
We create our own limitations because of strongly held beliefs, the way we perceive a particular situation, or how we interpret what somebody says to us. If ten people witness a car accident from ten different angles they will each have a different story. That doesn’t make any one of them wrong, or right, it just makes their perspective different from yours. Encourage healthy debate. Suspend judgement. Don’t force your story on others, and be willing to change your position in the face of new and compelling evidence.
