Choose your life and grow, for yourself.

 

Becoming a boss doesn’t mean you need to sit on a higher chair of authority, but it means taking the reign of your life into your own hands. The way you show up every day without fail showcases your boss attitude in your career, relationships, and lifestyle. You need to step into power if you do not want to settle for less.

You have to decide the role you want to take up every day and how you want to show up. Is it like a boss or a secretary? The efforts entirely depend upon you. Below are some inspirational ways to boost up your life with the right mindset.

1. Curate a Personalized Vision Statement

The vision statement helps you to remain focused on setting short-term realistic goals and long-term goals too. It is necessary to analyze and ask yourself about the qualities to develop and the mindset required to reach your goals. That’s why the idiom states, “You are what you attract.” So, if you want to boss up, create vision statements for every month (or even every year like I do) to work on them step-by-step. Your vision statement can include the desired state you want to achieve, your dreams, aspirations, goals, etc. This will give a sense of greater purpose and a direction in your life.

My vision statement (which I put on my Notion app which I go back to almost every day):
“I am an authentic, creative and driven leader who is known for being a positive force in my communities. I strive to live consciously and compassionately, and to inspire people I encounter to live a life that fulfills their potentials and heart desires so that we can all bring our unique gifts to the world.”

The findings from a survey state that 73% of the employees who worked with the ‘purpose-driven companies had higher engagement levels than 23% of the employees whose companies do not have any vision statement. Of course, we are not talking about how to be a better employee here (although the idea applies), but more about creating a purposeful and engaging life.

2. Don’t Let the Fear Make You Come to a Halt

As Nelson Mandela rightly said, “The brave man is not the one who does not feel afraid, but he who knows how to conquer that fear.”

Fear is a powerful force that creates a mental blockade, which stops you from living the life you have always dreamt of. It lets you create excuses that seem to stop you from taking actionable steps daily.

Scientifically, by actively shifting our mind from fear to solutions and actions, we activate our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that is used for planning and directing. An activated prefrontal cortex would ultimately quiet the amygdala, the part that generates fear or stress.

It is important to know that your competitors also face the same fear as you do and many of them just let the fear stop them. You have a competitive advantage here if you are able to move beyond your fear and do it anyway.

3. Contribute to Others’ Success

If you want to boss up in your life, it is essential to keep off the jealousy and connect with like-minded people. More important, seek to contribute to other people’s success. Because after all, “What Goes Around Comes Around.”

There are many ways to contribute to others’ success. However, stop asking people what you can do for them. Because they shouldn’t be thinking that for you. Research on that person and think of a list of ways to help the person, present the list to the person, and start from there.

Also, the only favorable return you should expect from your act of giving should be the joy you experience (positive energy that you can bring to other areas of your life).

There’s enough room for everyone and one of the best ways to improve your life is to improve others’. This is the same idea as the more value you give, the more you receive.

4. Start Controlling Your Responses (Instead of Other People’s Actions)

Well, I am guilty of this one constantly. And when I do, I will come back to this article…(meh)

People who start overthinking create problems that are not there in the first place. You cannot keep thinking about why other people mistreated you, mishandled you, or even abused you (and the truth is, no one mistreated you unless you interpreted so).

Just like you, everyone does whatever serves their best interest. So there is no point in wasting your energy to judge others, when very likely, you do similar things that are regarded as inconsiderate by others.

We can not change how other people react, but we have full control of our reactions and responses.

Respond thoughtfully instead of giving a knee-jerk reaction in the first place. Do not become repulsive or defensive; take the actions that will serve you best in the long term.

P.s. You can go through the online tools and assessment tests to help you realize how to respond in certain situations. One such tool is the ‘Saboteur Assessment tool’ devised by Shirzad Chamine and presented in his book “Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential And How You Can Achieve Yours.”

5. Leave Room for (a Lot of) Failures

Well, can we normalize failure? Instead of feeling embarrassed (or even shame) over our failures, know you have these failures because you tried.

We get good at things only by repetition, and by failing and correcting our mistakes.

I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but I have a goal to fail at least twice a month. Because only by allowing myself to fail, I would stretch myself even more.

How to set these “failure goals”? Well, for me they start from my goals for the month. I set my goals for the month (like decluttering my home and training at least 3 times a week) and go ahead with them, but I allow myself to fail in two of these attempts every month (failure for this month: meditate at least every other day).

The key? The failure should not repeat next month.

Start normalizing failures to give yourself the space to learn, grow, and excel. Personally, I think the guts to fail, is pretty sexy.

Final Words

To boss up in your life, you need to claim your space. Stay humble but never let fear and feeling of anxiety hover over you. Choose your life and grow, for yourself.