Taking Your Personal Power Back- Part 1

This month, we are going to focus on Personal Power! We will work through a 3-part series called Taking Your Power Back. 
 
Together, we will cover how to locate power leaks, both conscious and unconscious, and then how to create power patches so that you can better support your own success and/or help elevate your client’s success.


PART ONE: What is Personal Power?

When we have a power leak, we can definitely feel it. We may end up burning the candle at both ends and exhausted.  Or we may feel emotionally drained after facing a problem. 
Power leaks impact our relationships to ourselves and our relationships to others. They can also impact our discipline, follow through, and overall commitments.
 
Defining the consequence of power leaks is much easier than defining what it is. Today, we are going to unpack 'what' is personal power in Part 1 of our Personal Power series.
 
This is an important topic because when our power is intact, we live aligned with our values. We do this by establishing good internal boundaries that help inform our external boundaries. 
 
Here is the definition we use in coaching: 

- Personal power: The ability to form healthy internal boundaries that allow us to live fully aligned with our values and truth within the external world.
- Power leaks: Ways we drain our energy by lacking healthy internal boundaries which impacts our external boundaries. 
 
We can’t fix what we don’t see, so it is imperative to become self-aware of our personal power. When we become self-aware, we can then patch the leaks up. When our power is intact, we have more time and energy to nourish what we love and value in our life. 
 
How do you give your power away? 
 
Below is a short list of common power leak symptoms to look for:

• Loose or unhealthy boundaries with self
• Loose or unhealthy boundaries with others
• Taking responsibility for another’s feelings
• Inauthenticity or camouflaging feelings and needs 
• External motivations driving actions
• Not grieving as needed
• Guilt, shame, and envy
• Telling ourselves victim stories of “I can’t”
• Seeking self-worth externally
• Rigidity / Unwillingness
• Over-giving / Overdoing / Over-committing
• Underdoing / Under-committing
• Fighting against 'what is'

Which of these do you catch yourself in the act of doing? What else might you add to this list? These are all conscious ways we can give our power away. Next week, in Part 2, we are going to explore the unconscious ways we give our power away. Those are harder to catch. However, we have a formula to help you laser in... so stay tuned!

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