Developing a Healthy Leadership Lifestyle
If you know me, you know that I have been on a journey toward optimal health since August of 2021. I have reached a healthy weight goal, but focusing on what I was consuming from a food standpoint was just part of the process. Not only did I have to change what I was fueling my body with from a nutrition perspective, I actually had to change how often I was fueling my body. I mean, who eats 6 times a day and still loses weight? This girl!
That’s not all. I also had to examine the reasons why I was choosing to fuel my body in the ways that I was in order to achieve optimal health in mind, body, and spirit. When I did the hard and sometimes unpleasant work of understanding my unhealthy choices and replaced them with healthy ones, I found that I no longer had time or space for the unhealthy stuff that drained me.
Just what does this have to do with leadership or coaching or career journeys? Well, before I can be a transformational leader for others, I have to be able to lead myself. My leadership fuel has to be nutritionally complete - consuming ideas, perspectives, and lessons from other authentic, transformational leaders and mentors from many areas of my life. This is my leadership health community, and while they might not all have a title or professional role of leadership, they are leaders in their own way.
I need to fuel myself often with lessons and insights from my leadership community. I also have to do the hard and sometimes unpleasant work of examining my own biases and blind spots to achieve a healthy leadership mindset. When I take the time to do this, I no longer have time or space to spend on people, practices, or processes that drain me of my ability to provide hope and transform lives - whether that’s mine or those I lead.
