Nicola: [00:00:00] Hello, welcome to the female leaders on fire podcasts. I am your host. I’m Nicola Beckley. I am the coach working with women at the very top of organizations, helping them to find their fires, that passion, that purpose, that excitement, so they can have more impact, more influence. And income as a result and be of real force for good in organizations.

So today’s leadership lesson. I’m gonna be talking about self leadership a little bit more, but I’m gonna be sharing some really simple steps to help you. Start to really cultivate and focus on and curate your own self leadership. So you might wanna get a journal. You might wanna get a pen and write these down, or listen to these again when you’re maybe not driving, because these are steps that are gonna help you to become focused on leading your self first and self leadership.

So we talked about why self leadership important. We talk about why women are struggling. So what are [00:01:00] those steps to self leadership? So self leadership really begins with awareness. Self leadership really begins with that sense of just taking the time to really get to know yourself. So the self-awareness can feel like a big thing.

It can feel intimidating if you are making yourself so busy that there’s no time for you, you might think, well, where can I fit that in? How does that actually work and what I’m always very, very passionate about as a coach, I’m not gonna give you some big, huge nebulous concept. That’s too difficult to understand.

I’m gonna talk about and share with your permission. And if you want to follow up on it, things that are gonna help you immediately inspire action steps you can take right now. So with this cultivating, that self-awareness of becoming more self-aware first step to self leadership. How do you do that?

Super, super simple. But many of my clients start with this when we’re at the very beginning of working together to curate that sense of knowing what they need [00:02:00] and when they need it. Just a super simple way every day. When you wake up and in the morning, spend a little quiet time, whether that’s on a walk, whether it’s just over cup of coffee or whether that’s in the car, whether it’s in the shower, find just five, 10 minutes and ask yourself a couple of questions.

So ask yourself, how am I feeling? Think about all the different feelings and what you’re feeling, where you’re feeling it, then you can ask yourself, what’s the story that’s playing out for me today. So what do you think is, um, based on how you’re feeling, what’s the story that sits behind it. And then the third one is what do I need today?

So is it a day where you’re feeling really tired and you actually need some rest during the day, for example. So those three questions. So just start to cultivate that awareness to help with that self leadership. First one is how do I feel today? The second one is, what’s the story that’s playing out for me today.

And then third is what do I need today? And actually taking some action on it. I call this your cup of tea, voice, and your [00:03:00] cup of tea. Voice is. The voice of your heart and your feelings and what you know is right for you. And I call it your cup tea voice. Cuz if you sat here with me now, which would be brilliant, I asked you what you wanted to drink.

You would just know instantly. So what we’re trying to do with creating that self-awareness and that sense of that inner voice is you want to make that cup of tea, voice that instant. I know what I want to drink. Become a bigger thing. I know what I want for my career. I know what isn’t for me. I know what I want as my next career step.

I’m super clear on where I fit in this organization. So that’s, that’s a great place to start, start with our cup of tea voice, and those three questions. The next self leadership steps are almost like we’ve creating that. Self-awareness that understanding? Another thing that is a super powerful way to help create that is really think about every day, taking a look at time and just some flow of consciousness writing.

So some journaling and just not to make it overly. But just, just to really spend some time and just [00:04:00] write whatever comes into your mind, because what we’re doing, this is from, um, a brilliant lady called Julia Campbell. And she wrote a book called, um, the artist’s way. And she just, this is what she describes as morning pages.

So morning pages is where you just do some stream of consciousness writing. So what do I mean by that? You literally just open a page. You ask yourself a question at the top, which might be how I feeling as I’ve already mentioned, and you just write and you just see what’s there. And what that does from a brain perspective, you’re almost taken a dust pad and brush to the brain.

You’re almost. Closing some of the tabs that might be open, you’re making connections. You are just dusting things down. You’re just taking them what might be quite gray and you’re creating clarity and you’re creating light. So just have a think about how could you fit that into day. So is it more asking yourself questions and just thinking about them in your own mind or is that actually, I’m gonna take some time and I’m gonna journal daily.

And it’s not a pressure. It’s not a pass or fail thing. These are suggestions. So try them on and see how they feel for you. So your next self leadership [00:05:00] step, it’s really around identifying what you need and giving yourself what you need. So there’s a couple of ways to do this. And one that I use with clients, which is brilliantly simple yet powerful is just think about your feel good foundation.

So your feel good foundations are really the things that are gonna help you to show up as the most impactful and influential leader. In your week. So what are those things gonna be? So is that making sure that you get eight, nine hours of sleep, is that making sure that you reach a certain number of steps a day?

Is that making sure that you book your yoga session and you turn up for it? Is that actually knowing that you are setting boundaries of what time you’re gonna finish work? So what are your feel? Good foundations? So to be the best leader, the most impactful and influential leader, you can be. What are the feel good foundations that you need to have in your diary that you need to honor, that need to be there consistently and just list those out and then start picking those in your diary.

So it’s super simple, but it’s [00:06:00] super powerful. And the self leadership is really that, that self-awareness and curating it as we’ve already talked about. And then the second part starting to take action. So making sure that the voice of what you need and when you need it, but also taking action on. So feel good foundations is a hugely, hugely powerful one.

And another framework that I use with clients around self leadership as well is just thinking about your looking at your week and looking at your percentage split of time. So what percentage split of time am I giving to my work to my family, to everything else, to my health, but also finally to myself.

How does that split? What is that split? Just estimate it. What is the percentage. So, is it 60% work, 30% family, and then it’s just 10% left for you. How does that feel? Is that enough for you or do you need to spend some time and actually create more time for you and increase that percent of time [00:07:00] you’re spending on yourself?

And the final thing is just really, what does self leadership mean to you? What does it look like? What does it feel like when, how will you know when you are in it? So for me, I know when I’m energized, when I’m excited, when I’m. Ending the day I might be tired, but I’m feeling really fulfilled when I have clarity when I am in my best energy.

And all of those things are indications and symptoms to me that I am really, I am focused on self leadership first, so that’s it for today’s episode. So hopefully that’s been useful. I’d love to know what you think. If you are looking for help with starting and focusing on your self leadership, become that even more impactful and influential leader.

Do drop me a message at all my contact details on the show notes. And I will speak to you on next episode. Thanks so much. Bye

really resonates. If what I talk about really resonates with you [00:08:00] and you love what I have to say, and you have moments and flashes of inspiration from the podcast. I would invite you to get in touch, to find out how I can help you. So individually, that can be through my coaching focus program or my V I P program, depending on how you like to learn and what will suit you, or I can help you in your organization to really help the women that you work with across your organization at all different levels.

And at that very senior level to really feel empowered and to know that they can reach the very, the most senior levels in that organization and to give them the confide. In who they are and the clarity and what they want to be able to get there. And we do that through workshops. We do that through leadership programs, and we can do that through consulting work.

If you are looking for help with any of that, drop me an email Nicola Nicola score, code.com. The spelling’s not the easiest. So all the details are the show notes results I get for clients. Clients have been promoted twice in the six months we’ve worked together. They’ve been invited to join the board.

They’ve gone from redundancy to being [00:09:00] offered three dream jobs. They’ve gone from being pushed out of an organization to going into a bigger organization in a bigger role with a bigger pay rise and just a quote from a client that I particularly. I’ve gone from the pit of despair. When I started working with Nick to just being really happy and she is an incredibly empowered leader.

Now, if you’re not quite ready for that, you can download my overwhelm on fire guide the details that are in the show notes, but that really helps you every day to stay in your fire. So it helps you to clear your head. It helps you to come back to what’s important to you, and it helps you to have that most impact and influence every single day.

And it’s a little crib sheet that you can just go through and tick things. So go and download that. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter, which comes out every Friday, which is a Roundup of the week. Really. So what’s going on in my world. What’s the blog for that week, a quick video, that’s gonna help your particular subject.

And it’s all about helping female leaders to find their fire and also stats and, and any research from the industry as well. And things that [00:10:00] I’m reading that I really. And recommendations that we’re making. So go and subscribe to that. And finally, for the podcast, if you haven’t done so already, I would love you to go and leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode and you are always gonna have them when they’re released and doing that as well.

Not only helps you, but it also means that we are gonna reach more women and we’re gonna be able to start that revolution to helping female leaders to keep that fire. Find their fire and keep it. So keep that passion, that purpose, that excitement. So if you haven’t done that already, please go and do that.

Thank you.