Dare to Lead by Brené Brown was release a week ago!

I am a huge fan of Brené Brown, finding her work during an emotionally painful time in my life, and when I was ready to hear it, I accredit to changing my life. She has wisdom that is only achieved through taking an in-depth inventory of her own emotional life, and those that she studied in her research.  In her new book she explores what it truly means to lead from the inside out. As I begin to read her new work, I found this quote really inspiring and cultivating a desire to be an even better version of myself.

“When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work.”

What I take from that is that leading is not being the smartest person in the room, not needing to posture your confidence, your intellect, and your influence as though those aspects of you are your true strengths and that leading and power are things to share and empower others with. By facing things that make us uncomfortable or are not our beliefs with curiosity, peace and respect we can create an even stronger sense of connection. Connection is what helps us lead even more people to their own good work and in essence our own good work.

I think we can all learn from one another, and by doing so we are building a stronger future for ourselves and others.

I encourage you to buy her new book Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts here

7 Ways to Feel More Secure

First off what does it mean to feel insecure? Sure we've all heard that word before, but often I think words get misused and that people have different ways of explaining feeling words, so here is how I define insecure: Feeling fear or anxiety about not being good enough, or that you’re not going to get what you want, or that you will be abandoned, this may cause a racing mind and heart, sweating, feelings of uncertainty or dread. 

Now with that understanding here are 7 ways to feel more secure:

1. Feel your feelings. People try to push insecurities down or to forget them or ignore them. However, there is tremendous opportunity to grow from them, by feeling the uncomfortable feelings and processing them you can deal with them head on, and grow from them. Test out just how real the fears are or if you are simply holding yourself back.

2. Keep a gratitude journal. Insecurities have less power when people understand both their strengths and weaknesses work together to make them unique. Keep a long of what your strengths are, what you feel adds to your life, and what you are grateful for. 

3. Stop comparing yourself to others. From a distance, other people might seem happier, more successful, thinner or wealthier. But often, that is just how it looks. You never truly know what someone else is going through unless they open their whole life to you, its like the old saying "don't judge a book by its cover", what people put out their is typically just a representative of what their real life is.

4. Live in the now. Insecurities often arise when people live in the future or the past. They worry that new things won't turn out positive or that the past will repeat itself. What if you just simply focused on right now, in this moment and lived life as though all you had was this moment?

5. Share your feelings. Often times when we feel insecure we keep it to ourselves, this can very easily keep us stuck. By sharing our emotions with a trusted person we can get the release of letting some of the emotion go, support from someone else, and possibly and objective look on the situation. 

6. Practice doing what you know. If we build on our strengths they can often translate to helping us fight our insecurities. For example if you are really fantastic at fixing things around the house, then practice that, feeling the strength and accomplishment from performing that task, all of those feelings can thing get stored in your mental strength tool box. Then when it comes to the time to give a public speech, all the strength you built up in your mental tool box can get used in to fuel you through what scares you.

7.  Avoid people that make you feel small. You have to protect yourself. That should be your first priority, you are the first priority to you. If you surround yourself with people that empower, encourage and inspire you, then your life will feel more full, safe, and secure. 

9 ways to help combat Impostor Syndrome

I've often dealt with feelings of doubt about my performance , whether its been in school, at work, volunteering, in relationships. As I'm headed down the path of self-improvement, working to gain a promotion or simply doing something new, that fear pops up. This fear that I'm bumping up against the limits of my own abilities.

This is a common headspace to be in, one that creates anxiety and is known as Impostor Syndrome. The voice inside my head may start saying things like:

■ “Who gave you permission to do that?”

■ “Do you have a the qualifications to even try?”

■ “Who said you could try to help people, you're not good enough to do that?”

If you suffer from something similar to this, your voice may be telling you something very similar, all directed towards the idea of "Am I really good enough, I'm such a fraud?!"

Moving beyond these fears takes awareness, affirmations, and challenging the belief often. Those that are naturally gifted and dedicated to our skill or talent or work, we often discount its value. Because we feel as though we haven't really tired or earned it the hard way because its something that we are passionate about.

For example, I love practicing yoga and have been practicing for 4 years, I wanted to spread the love to others so I decided to do a 200 hour yoga teacher training to help empower others. Now that I'm a teacher and have the chance to share this wonderful practice I tell myself that:

"I'm a fake"

Even though I know I have years of practice and the training to actually teach.

Here are some ways that I've found help me to practice overcoming these thoughts and feelings:

1. Stop comparing myself to others

2. Remind myself that I am a trained and/or have a skill to perform the task

3. Call out your thoughts by name "I'm experiencing Imposter Syndrome"

4. Remember that making a mistake doesn't mean you're a fake

5. Realize that when you hold yourself back you are robbing the world of the value you add

6. Find someone that you can talk to about feeling like a fraud

7. You're not gonna die from not being "perfect"

8. Keep track on the positive feedback you hear

9. Accept that you have a role in your success up to this point