Clarify your highest aspirations
Most people in leadership positions are skilled in setting—and achieving—goals. If you weren’t, you likely wouldn’t be in your role. But when it comes to making progress on large-scale, complex problems, it’s hard to know where to start. What is the best way to begin to make a difference in the face of massive challenges like climate change or inequality? Or even closer to home—how can you and your team take the lead in helping your organization solve intractable, long-standing problems?
It all begins with defining your highest aspiration or purpose. When you connect to what you really care about, you can begin to identify steps for making it happen. Unless you’re clear about what you want to achieve, you’re unlikely to achieve it.
The goal isn’t to become a “heroic leader”—ample evidence shows that model is doomed to fail in the context of ever-growing complexity. But by becoming more self-aware and clarifying your sense of purpose, you increase your capacity for enabling systems-level change.
Send us your recommendations for practices and tools.
Mindfulness
In today’s increasing complex context, many of us feel at the mercy of forces beyond our control. Through the simple practice of mindfulness, you learn to suspend your judgment and exercise curiosity. In the process, you come to realize that you have more choices than you may have believed.
Although mindfulness has its roots in Eastern and other religious traditions, it has gained increasing popularity in the West as a secular practice for being fully present at any given moment. The result can be increased clarity about what’s important, what’s possible, and where you want to put your energy.
Definition from Mindful.org: “Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”
3 Simple Steps to Mindfulness and Finding a Purposeful Life by Emma Smith
What Is Mindfulness video with Jon Kabat-Zinn
Meditation
Meditation is a set of activities for focusing your attention inward and training your mind to detach from your thoughts. Through regular practice, you learn how your mind works and how to achieve a state of “thoughtless awareness.” Mindfulness is a specific form of meditation; other kinds include guided, mantra, and loving-kindness meditation. All of these practices can help reduce stress, increase calmness, and improve clarity.
Definition from Mindful.org: “Meditation . . . involves taking the time to pay attention to where we are and what’s going on, and that starts with being aware of our body.”
Habits of a Systems Thinker
Developed by the Waters Foundation, the Habits of a Systems Thinker are 14 practices for applying systems thinking in daily life. The Habits offer strategies for solving problems and questioning the status quo. They help people to build flexible thinking and an appreciation of emerging insights and multiple perspectives.
Journaling
Regularly writing in a journal is another way to reflect on and gain knowledge about yourself and what’s important to you. You can follow a structured process, such as those listed below, or you can be more freeform in your writing—whatever meets your needs. Prompts might include:
- I feel most energized when…
- Where do I feel blocked and how might I become unblocked?
- My top five values are…
Meditation and Journaling: Combining Practices to Reflect Your Inner World