Recently I visited Venice with my family and learned so much about this beautiful place during our weekend. Did you know that Venice is, in fact a series of islands with 420 bridges connecting it together? As we continued to cross many of these bridges, I reflected on how we, as individuals and leaders, can bridge the gap from where we are to where we want to be.
[tweetthis]A common problem many face is not knowing how to bridge the gap[/tweetthis] If you stay where you are, you will not move forward. If you don’t spend time thinking about what is possible, you will remain where you are.
I was working with Emma (changed her name for confidentiality) and she wanted to ‘hold her own’ in the presence of her colleague who she felt always took the stage and came across as being more powerful. The impact this had on Emma was that she often gave into her colleague, allowing her to take the stage, which resulted in Emma feeling small. Often her colleague would make demands of Emma’s team members and similarly Emma didn’t hold her own and asked her team to follow through with the demands to keep her colleague quiet. You can imagine the team were beginning to feel somewhat frustrated. Although Emma had huge support from her team and they could see what was happening and wanted to support her to ‘hold her own.’
Emma was soon to run an in-house training event with her peers from across different business units. She asked me to help her ‘hold her own’ as this colleague would be present and Emma’s fear was that her colleague would take over and run the show, despite the training event being Emma’s idea and based on her expertise.
And so during our coaching, Emma was able to imagine herself in the room, communicating confidently and engaging the audience.
Emma stepped into her potential of knowing her own truth that she is an expert in her field and the participants were there to listen and learn from her.
Emma aligned her thoughts after I supported her challenging limiting assumptions about herself and choosing a new thought pattern of who she was and how she wanted to contribute. Emma lived out her new thought pattern through her behaviour. Rather than being distracted by the attendance of her colleague, Emma positively engaged her colleague during the event, whilst holding her own.
Emma saw the potential challenge i.e. the presence of her colleague, as an opportunity for her own growth and to learn how to ‘hold her own’.
The event was a huge success with Emma being recognised for her expertise and the group valued the learning they took away. Most of all, Emma held her own and lived in accordance with the leader she already is.
To recap, the 4 simple steps that you too can take to bridge the gap from where you are to where you want to be are to:
- Visualise where you want to be / what you want to achieve / who you want to become. Spend some time really thinking about this and creating a picture in your mind of what it looks like. What are you doing? Who else is with you? What is the environment around you like? How are you showing up?
- Step into this vision now and when you do this you are in fact stepping into your potential. Ask yourself ‘what if I could do that?’ ‘what if I could be like that?’ ‘What if that were possible?’
- Align your thoughts and behaviours with this vision and live each day believing in yourself, in your own potential.
- See any challenges that may present themselves as opportunities for growth and step into them knowing you have the resources within you to get through and learn from the situation or interaction.
What are your thoughts in relation to the gap you want to bridge so that you can become the leader you want to be? Please leave your comments in the box below, I would love to hear from you.
