Are you feeling winter fatigue?

I don’t know about you, but I feel like winter has really dragged on this year, especially living in Melbourne. I don't think I'm alone in feeling the effects of it.

These months can drag on as we wait for the sun to come out and revive us with vitamin D. However, just waiting for spring as a motivator will not keep us happy and healthy - and in fact, this approach, is poor self-leadership.

Poor self-leadership is obviously something that you want to avoid, yet it can easily creep up on us at this time of the year. By understanding some of the consequences of poor self-leadership, we can avoid unnecessary pain and stress.

Rather than being governed by a nagging, negative voice inside your head, you can use your inner voice to positively pursue your goals.

Strong self-leadership can provide us with so many benefits.
For example, we can embrace this winter time to hibernate, reflect and reboot as a fantastic opportunity for both our professional and personal lives.
But beyond that, great self-leadership lets you become a more effective leader of others. You’re able to inspire and motivate your colleagues to accomplish great things.

The Negative Effects of Poor Self-Leadership
The consequences of poor self-leadership appear in many different domains.

Most importantly, poor self-leadership has a negative impact on ourselves. From making it more difficult to achieve our professional goals to being anxious about upsetting others, poor self-leadership elevates the negative voice inside our heads. While that negativity may reside in our subconscious minds, it is having a direct effect on our behaviour. It holds us back from achieving.

Not only that, but poor self-leadership affects others. This is especially true when we delegate self-responsibility to friends, family, and/or colleagues.  In psychologist Daniel Goleman’s groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence, he argues that the best leaders place significant attention on leading themselves. He says, "Whether it's a manager, partner or family member, we often unintentionally outsource responsibility for self-leadership, believing it to be someone else’s job to lead and maximise our potential."

Ignore At Your Peril
Poor self-leadership can lead to stress, anger, and missed opportunities. The great news is that it isn’t a predetermined fate. By putting in the work and making self-leadership a priority, we can avoid these consequences of poor self-leadership.

As Patricia Aburdene said, "The cornerstone of effective leadership is self-mastery."

Therefore, when you are considering self-leadership, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is positive self-leadership?

• How can I protect myself from the harsh stream of negative criticism that I subject myself to daily?

• How am I going to embrace winter and blossom as spring approaches?

Engaging in this self-reflection is extremely valuable. Doing so, you help you live up to your full potential and have fun doing it.

References
Goleman, D. (2005). Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (10th Anniversary ed.). Bantam.

Further insight

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