3 Powerful Ways to Create Positive Change & Reach Your Potential

Create Positive Change

Accelerating change means accepting a new reality for living each day. If you want to get out of the status quo, you must be willing to change your thinking. Making a real commitment to change over the long haul can feel daunting. It’s helpful to learn a few pivots that have the power to transform your life.  

So, what do you need to tell yourself to get away from playing it safe? 

1. Make Failure Your Friend

The first step toward positive change involves learning to embrace failure. When failure is our enemy, we fear mistakes and lean into perfectionism. New research warns of the dangerous potential of perfectionism to squash creativity. In reality, perfectionism only confirms our beliefs about ourselves. It creates a leadership style that drives others away because they will inevitably fall short in some way. But perhaps, on a deeper level, perfectionism reinforces a false internal narrative that you are never enough. This statement is entirely false. You are enough, and failure is your roadmap for understanding the path you'll take to get there. 

Failure is going to happen. So, why not make it work for you? Instead of running from failure, shift your perspective. What can you learn from failure? How will it change your next efforts? If you run from failure, you'll find it every day. Mistakes and inconsistencies will follow us throughout life. When failure becomes a turning point, your worst day can become your best step forward. 

2. Change Your Number

The average leader in America has a self-belief rating of 2.7 on a scale of 1-10. This understanding drastically impacts the way leaders view failure, themselves, and the people around them daily. To maximize their effectiveness, world-class leaders need to increase that number to an 8. At a 2.7, discomfort is scary, and you feel like you should avoid it at all costs. Failure becomes an indictment of your value rather than a down payment for your future growth and success. You cannot break free from the status quo while feeling like an imposter. 

World-class leaders understand that embracing discomfort leads to opportunities for growth. It takes as much work to avoid discomfort as it does to embrace discomfort. For many, changing their number is a daily, hourly, and even minute-by-minute battle. When that battle stops, you're more than likely in trouble. Embracing failure isn't necessarily natural, but it can be learned and developed over time. 

3. Change Your Audience

You've probably recognized the noise overtaking so many business sectors. The volume of stressors is turned up. Education leaders are bombarded with problems, and they feel distanced from the investments and interactions that are most rewarding. Leaders in manufacturing are stuck with short supply chains and greater demand. Tasks that fuel ingenuity may be put on the backburner to fill in the gaps of each day. As expectations grow, it feels overwhelming. Angry consumers, difficult interactions, and unrealistic expectations plague the mind. But what if those weren't the thoughts that fuel the fire? What if you switched your audience to a more profound and sturdy "Why?" that gets you up in the morning? 

You need to replace people-pleasing with a pursuit of purpose. 

People-pleasing is not an option for reaching your potential. You may not know your purpose, so here are five questions to ask yourself to get started on that journey: 

• What rings the joy bell of your heart? 
• What are your natural gifts, talents, and abilities? 
• Where do other people say I have my most significant impact? 
• Does this provide rain in the lives of others? 
• Am I able to do this without sacrificing the relationships in my life that matter? 

Your purpose is your north star when the world feels upside down. It grounds you to the passions that go far beyond the expectations others place on you and even those you may place on yourself.  

Learn how to turn the corner by starving negativity and feeding your purpose at our August 5 Think Tank as a gift to our leadership community!

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash