9 Ways to Empower Yourself and Achieve Your Goals

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Self-leadership is a process through which individuals influence their own behavior to achieve the self-direction and self-motivation necessary to perform, empower themselves, and achieve personal excellence.

The concept of self-leadership first emerged as an expansion of self-management, which was rooted in clinical self-control theory and Bandura’s (1992) notion of self-efficacy—individuals’ beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise influence over events affecting their lives. Self-leadership strategies have been found to facilitate empowerment by enhancing perceptions of meaningfulness, purpose, self-determination, competence, and self-efficacy. Not surprisingly, this research was later applied to organizational effectiveness.

Strategies to Develop and Build Self-Leadership

Developing and building self-leadership entails both behavioral and cognitive strategies that fall into three main categories:

1. Behavioral-focused strategies correspond to self-management (self-goal setting, self-observation, self-reward, self-punishment, and self-cueing).
2. Natural reward strategies promote intrinsic motivation.
3. Cognitive thought pattern strategies involve visualizing successful performance, self-talk, and evaluating beliefs and assumptions.

Each strategy is designed to assist individuals in advancing their individual performance.

The following nine strategies are based on the Abbreviated Self-Leadership Questionnaire developed by researchers Houghton and Neck:

1. Set specific goals for your own performance (self-goal setting).
2. Keep track of how well you’re doing at work (self-observation).
3. Work toward specific goals you have set for yourself (self-goal setting).
4. Visualize yourself successfully performing a task before you do it (visualizing successful performance).
5. Picture in your mind a successful performance before you actually do a task (visualizing successful performance).
6. Reward yourself with something you like/enjoy once you have successfully completed a task (self-reward).
7. Talk to yourself (out loud or mentally in your head) to work through difficult situations (evaluating beliefs and assumptions).
8. Mentally evaluate/challenge the accuracy of your beliefs about situations you’re finding challenging or having problems with (evaluating beliefs and assumptions).
9. Think about your own beliefs and assumptions whenever you encounter a difficult situation (evaluating beliefs and assumptions).

All human beings are self-leaders; however, not all self-leaders are effective at self-leading. ——Charles C. Manz