Self-leadership, the act of taking responsibility for the choices and outcomes in your life, is critical not only to having the quality of life you want but also to your ability to lead anyone else.

Whether you use a wheelchair, are blind or deaf, rely on assistive technology to get through the day, or are dealing with any of the myriad other challenges of disability, it can sometimes be tough to realize that two concepts – self leadership and your choice of attitude – outweigh anything else the world can throw at you.

But consider this: when Jewish psychiatrist Victor Frankl was faced with the unimaginable horrors of the Nazi death camps that had taken the lives of everyone he loved, he found this one enduring truth:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Choose Your Own Attitude
When life throws challenges or changes at you, it’s easy to feel “blindsided” and defensive. Although normal reactions, if you let them, fear and defensiveness can become deeply engrained behaviors that keep you from going forward, even when opportunity beckons.

Consider instead how having a positive attitude – I can and will overcome this circumstance, I will succeed, I will find the lesson in this challenge – leads to strength, confidence, and a willingness to keep trying. In fact, this attitude of refusing to be defeated, of taking responsibility for the outcomes in your life, will enable you to free yourself from a past which may potentially hinder your ability to create successful circumstances for yourself.

Lead Yourself before Leading Others
According to leadership expert Scott Campbell, one definition of self-leadership is having the capacity and commitment both to take full responsibility for one’s own responses to life and to create a life that is personally meaningful and fruitful. It is the antithesis of shifting responsibility for one’s degree of happiness and satisfaction to others, or circumstances.

Self-leadership is, in fact, all about taking leadership of your own experience. It’s about the leadership you exercise over yourself, a skill critical to becoming an effective leader of others. To achieve this, you must develop a way of being and interacting with the world that begins from the “inside out” – developing an awareness of your habits and behaviours, taking responsibility for them, and being willing to look at each situation through fresh, creative, and positive eyes.

Self-Leadership in the Workplace
True, when you’re struggling to find an employer smart enough to realize that your disability just means your level of determination and value-add will surpass that of all your able-bodied coworkers, it can be tough to think positive attitude and self-leadership.

But consider this: best-selling author Ken Blanchard and his co-authors, in their Self-Leadership and the One-Minute Manager (HarperCollins, 2005), noted that top managers, given a choice, prefer” empowered” people – individuals they can respect and trust to make good decisions. The authors suggest that there is no better way “to become more valuable than to be able to take initiative, become a problem solver, and act and think like an owner.”

Challenge Constraints, Celebrate Power
To quote Blanchard, “Self leaders: challenge assumed constraints, celebrate their points of power, and collaborate for success.”

An assumed constraint, per Blanchard, is any past experience that limits your current and future experiences. ‘Power’ though often interpreted in a negative way, in this case means having the ability to influence others, and to use this in a positive way. Collaborating for success means giving and receiving the support and direction that you and others need to achieve your goals, based on the reality that you can most often achieve more by collaborating than you can alone.

So how to put these ideas in action? Think of a current challenge you are facing and ask yourself these questions:-

• What assumptions do you have about the situation that could be constraining you?
• What forms of power do you have available to you to influence this situation, and how might you use them to positive effect?
• Who has a mutual interest in this issue, and how could you collaborate with each other to address this challenge?

Self-Leadership Drives Positive Change
When we fail to exercise self-leadership, we leave success and positive change to chance, or to the desires or decisions of others. Without a doubt, this can create feelings of frustration, anger, disappointment or even depression. But even more importantly, it can stop us from realizing our potential and achieving our goals. It can stop us from visualizing and striving towards the future we want to create.

Can you afford not to become the leader in your own life?