I decided to make this blog because I don’t believe that doing deep inner work needs to be something that takes up tons of time. Creating a meaningful and transformational self-development practice doesn’t mean meditating for hours a day or traveling to a literal mountain top (though I have nothing against meditation and actually find it useful). It takes commitment just like anything else.
1. Commit to a deeper presence within you
That depth that you are craving in leadership and in personal growth comes from within yourself, right? So the simplest strategy is to develop and commit to the practice of feeling and going deeper into your own presence.
You could commit as much to a simple practice every day to get there as you could to an ongoing commitment to live and go deeper into your own presence within the self. Because again, where you really want to go in your self-development starts from within. Depth can only ever exist when you hold it within yourself.
Examples of this are:
- Feeling yourself as more present when you’re in a conversation with somebody.
- Bringing yourself back into your own body when you feel pulled in several directions.
2. Commit to taking a daily action that exemplifies the self-development you wish to see.
Piece number two of this simple strategy is to choose something that you can be paying attention to every single day. That might look like paying more attention to how you communicate and practicing more presence with communication.
When you’re communicating with someone, can you also be walking in the question of, and the noticing of, how they are acting in your communication, like how the other person is showing up and responding to your communication?Because by witnessing and watching their response, for example, you’re going to learn a lot about what’s going on in your own presence as a communicator.
You may choose this thing for a week at a time, a few days at a time, a few months at a time until you’ve gotten much deeper into the inquiry of it and the self-development of it.
Choose something that you can do every single day to go deeper into your own inquiry and help yourself develop as a leader.
So let’s recap those two simple steps to have a practice of self-development when you don’t have any time to do so.
- Find a practice of staying connected to yourself throughout the day, every single day.
- Commit to something that you can walk in the inquiry up throughout your day every day that will help you transform.