By: Laura Adams, Luminate
I believe that everyone can realize their dreams IF they dare to achieve them! Following are the highlights of my 5 Dare To Achieve Principles to creating a fulfilling and successful life.
1. DISCOVER YOUR PASSION
Dare to have big dreams, and make your dreams real!
I discovered my passion at a young age - the natural world and the power of human connections within it. Since then I have transformed my passion for the outdoors into my life’s work. It has empowered me to use my voice, and my life experiences and perspectives, to improve the lives of others and the world we live in.
Discovering Your Passion is the first of my Dare to Achieve principles.
What is your passion?
How do you acknowledge it, cultivate it and dare to achieve your dreams?
2. CULTIVATE YOUR PERSONAL MASTERY
Know yourself, leverage the power of positive thinking and lead with authenticity.
Cultivating our personal mastery enables us to realize our full potential. It has three component parts: authentic leadership, positive psychology and mindfulness.
Authentic leadership starts with knowing and mastering ourselves. It is about making a commitment to excellence: giving our best to any task we do and to all the relationships we have. Authentic leaders demonstrate their passion, practice their values consistently, establish meaningful relationships, and have the self-discipline to achieve results.
The second component of personal mastery is Positive Psychology – a strength-based perspective and approach to life. When we focus on the strengths in our lives, and the lives of others - and when we cultivate what is best within us, and our lives - we thrive.
Mindfulness is the third component, and something we hear a lot about these days. Mindfulness is living consciously; with active awareness of our words, our actions and our thoughts. Mindfulness is being aware of what is going on inside of us - and within the world around us.
How can you cultivate your personal mastery?
Do you have the courage to get to know yourself better and what your core values are?
Where can you leverage the power of positive psychology, and live more mindfully?
3. HONE YOUR JUDGEMENT AND DECISION MAKING
Hone your judgment and decision-making skills and create a better future for yourself and those around you!
As humans we are constantly striving to achieve a balance between our goals and objectives, and the human factors that influence us. In the outdoors, this is even more complex, as we are making judgments and decisions in the ever-changing dynamics of nature; regardless of whether we are recreationalists, professionals, business owners or board members.
Decisions are not made as isolated moments of choice; therefore we need to understand our goals/objectives, and the things that are influencing us. The decision-making process we use depends upon our level of expertise, familiarity with the situation, and things that limit us such as human factors, time pressure or uncertainty.
Strategies like mental simulation, critical thinking and utilizing the wisdom of the team mind are very effective in supporting sound decisions – and we need to use them more. These strategies allow us to ‘test’ whether our judgments are accurate and to reduce biases that may exist amongst individual decision-makers.
We can make better decisions if we know the things that influence us – the factors that cloud our judgments and those that support our decision success.
What are the factors that influence your judgment? – in the field, at the office, or around the board room table?
How can you enhance your decision-making skills to have greater impact?
4. FOCUS YOUR VISION
Leadership without perspective is like setting off on a trip into the wilderness to an unknown destination, and no tools to help you stay on course.
A fundamental role we have as leaders is to focus our vision. We may do this for ourselves, or we may co-create it with key thought leaders for a business, a community or for an entire sector. Vision is our ‘WHY’. It is our call to action, our purpose, our bold goal…
When we have a clear vision; we have a clear purpose. Then we can set realistic yet demanding challenges for ourselves and the people around us, and inspire them with the desire, the determination and the energy to attain these goals.
How can you focus your vision and inspire yourself and others to achieve it?
5. LEVERAGE THE POWER OF SYSTEMS THINKING AND INNOVATION
Be ahead of change; instead of being forced to respond to it.
Innovation uses principles of systems thinking to solve problems and explore new opportunities. It can be applied to anything from improving an existing product or service to transformational change. Innovation is a mindset, and we all benefit from cultivating a culture where innovation thrives.
You can improve your products and services, design more efficient business processes, or transform your culture. There are many excellent innovation tools and techniques available to help you build an innovation mindset into your lives and businesses.
How can you think more systemically and be more innovative – right now, and into the future?