Personal Power Comes with Personal Development

3/8/2018

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by Suzie Doscher,
Executive and Life Coach, Zurich

According to the Business Dictionary personal power is “Influence over others, the source of which resides in the person instead of being vested by the position he or she holds.” In my opinion personal power in non-business language is the strength that lies within you. I feel I found my full personal power once I was aware and connected with my core values, had the life skills to handle difficult moments and situations, and had an influence on where my mind took me.

Personal power is composed of:

Knowing who you are
Being comfortable with yourself
Knowing what is right and wrong, a personal code of ethics
Being honest and trustworthy not only with others, but also with yourself
Being dependable, again not only for others, but also for yourself
Living your life from a place of integrity
Handling your choices and their consequences, even the negative ones
Knowing what you want, finding your way forward
Knowing your weaknesses and your strengths
Having an open-heartedand non-judgmental approach
Taking responsibility for your actions and yourself

Personal power is an inner strength. Often you do not know you have it until it is needed. Personal power is acquired while growing up, through making mistakes, learning from these, making better choices,and trying new approaches. All of this contributes to personal growth and development–mastering oneself. This means living with respect for yourself, being true to yourself and to what is important to you. Once you know what it feels like to have your full personal power, it is hard to compromise that feeling.

What does it mean to have personal power?

People say, “You have power,” or “Take your power back!” What are they talking about?
In my personal and professional opinion,you are in the place of knowing you can handle anything that is thrown at you – that is feeling your personal power. When obstacles pop up, your emotional triggers trip you up, or you are on the receiving end of someone else’s emotions having been triggered and you handle it well and regain your sense of balance relatively quickly. When you feel in control of your emotions, your life, your path, and your way forward. Life is difficult yet you feel you can handle the obstacles – that is having personal power.

Here are a few examples of what it feels like to have your power:

When you realize and accept you always have a choice. At any given moment you always have at least one choice: to do or not to do, to go or not to go, to say or not to say, to react or not to react. In other words,you can react in the moment and most probably regret it, or choose not to react, give it some time, and act on it a little later or even the next day.
When you take responsibility for your actions. Regardless of whether the consequences of your actions were good or bad, you take responsibility for them and are comfortable enough to ask yourself: “What did I do, or not do, to help create this situation?”
When your behavior allows you to sleep at night.
You are not betraying yourself with the decisions you make or the actions you take. You are living from a place of integrity.
When you are not living according to other people’s standards or beliefs, but to your own.
Know that when others have influence over you, you are allowing the volume of your power to be turned down.
When you allow yourself to hear what your heart and soul have to say and you are not listening only to your mind.
When you are strong enough not to play the blame game.
Instead of concentrating on blaming something or someone when something has gone wrong, you ask yourself, “What can I do differently next time?”
When you remember a thought only has power to the extent that you believe it to be true.
If you do not believe something, it does not have any power. Beliefs that limit your actions are referred to as limiting beliefs or disempowering beliefs. These are thoughts that you treat as if they were facts, giving that thought your power and thereby limiting yourself.
When you are not reacting – or behaving – in a manner motivated by your fears.
For example, this could mean you choose to stay quiet rather than express yourself out of fear of losing something, or the fear of confrontation. There are many fears that drive our behavior. Recognizing what your fears are is vital in personal development. To recognize fears,observe what overwhelms, blocks you, gives you a stomach ache, makes you think of all the reasons you cannot do something,or makes you go in circles always ending up in the same place.
When you live in alignment with your personal core values, with respect for yourself, being true to yourself and what is important to you. To me this is one of the most important exercises to take my clients through. Re-connecting them with their core values is a fabulous foundation for personal development. It can be quite magical.

With your personal power intact you can solve problems and achieve the results you want.
All of this contributes to personal growth and development – mastering oneself, not others. After giving your power away to others often enough, and putting yourself in a weak spot, you eventually learn how to make better choices. This is all part of life and its lessons.

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