Self-Leadership: The Difference Between Living Your Life and Leading Your Life
How many of us are settling for merely living life?
The sad truth is we can all do that without ever leaving the house. Life goes on regardless.
However, everything changes when we make the decision to start leading life.
The unsettling existence
It’s an unsettling existence not to be following an intentional, desired route in life.
It can look like holding ourselves back, even though we know very well what we need to do next.
Or, it can look like not knowing where to go next and walking in exhausting circles hunting for a direction to go in.
It can look like following a purpose and staying on track, a track that’s not our own. Being led in the direction of someone else’s desires.
The pandemic is a great example of an event that threw so many of us off course. The ensuing job losses, divorces and deaths from these unprecedented circumstances stopped us in our tracks. The futures we had envisioned disappeared from one day to the next. The road ahead hit a dead end.
Of course job loss, divorce and death can happen at any time, forever changing the course of our lives. As can the happy events of births, new relationships, raising a family, promotion, travel and retirement.
Life events
These are all events that make up the rich tapestry of life — and yet, they can also be the reason that we’re not really living — or better yet, leading it.
Because we all live life every day. We get up, go through the motions, sleep and start again. But how many of us are doing it with vision, intention and action that is our own?
How many of us believe we can actually do what we really want?
How many of us are just leaving it to chance, and living by circumstance?
Think of the mother who spent her life dutifully raising her children. Then when they become independent she’s at a loss for what to do, because putting herself first is now an alien concept.
Think of the student who is completing a law degree to please her parents. What she actually dreams of is opening an art cafe, and she’d be much better at it too. Maybe some day. She doesn’t dare entertain the thought now.
Or the efficient and capable receptionist in the accountancy firm, who settles for comfort and safety, instead of following her own true dream of being an accountant herself.
They are all living their lives, perhaps even full and active lives. But they’re not leading them.
Instead they’re being led — by others’ values, external circumstances, or a fear of their true potential and the great unknown.
Except that life is a great unknown in any case; the pandemic taught us that. That comfortable and safe job could disappear tomorrow too.
We are the conductors
Self-leadership is knowing that while external events and other people may play a part in our orchestra of life, we are the conductors. The symphony is ours. We get to choose how it sounds, and we trust that we can make it sound good. I mean, who else knows better than ourselves what we value the most?
When we take ownership of life, when we take responsibility for how it looks, feels and where it goes, we become leaders. We don’t bow out and seek someone else to blame when things take a turn for the worst.
The risks of an unled life
Every good leader also knows that they will need resources and support, that they’ll have highs and lows, that sometimes they’ll get it wrong. But they’re willing to take the risk, because they understand that the risks of an unled life are much greater. And the longer they lead, the easier it is to get it right.
We will all live our lives no matter what. How many of us will choose to lead our lives?
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Siobhán Gallagher is a coach, educator and writer focused on the intersection between self-leadership, communication and wellbeing. Join her mailing list. Connect with her at siobhangallagher.co, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Image by thatsphotography from Pixabay
