For most, compliance to norms and culture are a given. As life winds down and responsibilities pile up, more often than not, one feels lost and gradually succumbs to accepting a mental state of mind that is dominated by melancholy and a loss of self-identity. Not many realize that we have an inert personal power to impact the world we live in – an ability to influence, impact and transform not only our own life but that of others. 

What is Personal Power? 

With constant onslaught of information in this digital age, standards of achievement, beauty and lifestyle have a direct and drastic impact on anyone accessing the web. It is unavoidable since these trends glare down at you when you open Facebook, Instagram or even Twitter. Attaining these standards becomes an unconscious life goal and disappointments on not meeting this defined criterion leads to feelings of insecurity, inadequacy and anxiety. 

Personal power is an ability to access and own your true potential where you recognize yourself as an individual who is the best version of who he/she is. It is realizing your authentic self with all your strengths and weaknesses and accepting yourself for who you are and then defining for yourself how to use this power to achieve your goals. 

How to Own Your Personal Power

1. You are wonderful, be you

You are an original – no imitation, no copies. Discovering yourself, knowing who you are and gladly accepting yourself as an individual is the first step in unraveling your personal power. Having the courage to own you and be authentic opens doors to meaningful connections where your positivity and genuineness attracts similar people in your circle. 

Quirky? Nerdy? Artistic? Clumsy? Verbose? For the sake of conformity and acceptability, we tend to hide our distinguishing attributes and train ourselves to be a robotic version of appropriateness that we subconsciously accept as our true-authentic-self. Unfortunately, this much reduced edition does not showcase any of our special qualities and we become part of a crowd that is dictated by similar standards of conventions. 

When you’re picking out a dress – you hit the pause button and question if you’re influenced into purchasing or if it is honestly your style and something you like. List down things that you genuinely love about yourself – from your physical attributes to your emotional capacity to your mental abilities.

“A feeling of confidence and personal power comes from facing challenges and overcoming them.” – Brian Tracy

2. Reflect, evaluate, plan

All the Ws become your friend – Why, What, When, Where, Which, Who? Will? Now that you’re on the path of uncovering the capacity of your personal power, you need to develop a skill of reflection, evaluation and planning. 

You need to practice asking: What you’re doing? What are you getting out of it? What more can I do? Where will this lead to? Which of your skill is coming to use here? Will this make me happy? Will this be a learning experience? 

The Ws matter and it matters that you develop the habit of asking yourself questions and reflecting on the answers that your mind gives you. Reflection and evaluation is crucial to deciphering the complexities of your authentic-self: with the correct answers, you can equip yourself to focus on building yourself up on qualities that distinguish you and your personal power.

3. Time matters and so does discipline

Randomness leads to chaos and a pressured mind will be ill-equipped to take on the world or even remotely manage to get daily tasks in. For anyone to be satisfied with a day, it is imperative that they have a well-scheduled day planned. Being in control of your day even before it starts gives you a sense of power and lets you decide how you want to lead it rather than the day dragging you through its many loops and holes with you having absolutely no choice in the matter. 

How do we achieve that? When you’re about to sleep at night, reflect on the day you’ve had and figure out what you’ve missed out on and how you feel about it. List out tasks with a priority-agenda and set it aside to review in the morning. 

Wake up early, review your list and add all the agendas for the day – incorporating time for reflection, exercise and family/friends. With a clear list in view, objective questions to ask and knowing that you’re in control, you’re most definitely equipped to take on the world with your personal power in check. 

4. Value added connections 

Work, family, and friends – everyone deserves value-added connections. Work does not imply that you move from task-to-task but means that you move a level up by creating meaningful relations with your co-workers and employees. You show interest in when they speak to you, make an effort with personalizing the services you provide.

When you spend time with family and friends, do not take them for granted – listen to them, have meaningful conversations and let your presence be felt through your conversation and your gestures. A valuable employee or family-member is most likely to lead a more fulfilling life and be in a better position to enhance his/her circle of influence compared to one who has resorted to focusing on just doing day-in-day-out tasks to check them off a list. 

5. Build others up

In a competitive world, people resort to malicious practices of deceiving and trickery that only benefits them but these remunerations are short-term and leave one isolated in their hollow success. No one forgets a kind gesture or meaningful advice or a heart-felt suggestion that can benefit them and to own your personal power, it is essential that you never miss out on an opportunity to help someone out – be it through actions or words, this direct investment pays over manifolds. 

6. See how far you’ve come but stay grounded

Positivity translates into positive impacts but how do you know where you’ve reached? Your success in uncovering your personal power can be measured by the quality in which your life has improved. The impact on the people around you, the satisfaction you achieve at work, the connections you’ve made and the importance you feel in your own life all demonstrate the impact of your personal power. 

“Your personal power is not something that is going to reveal itself at some later date. Your power is a result of your decision to reveal it. You are powerful in whatever moment you choose to be.” – Marianne Williamson

7. Keep growing, keep shining

Mundane practices, stagnation of routine and an ill-conceived image of oneself can lead to a death before an actual death. You must continue growing both mentally and emotionally to keep uncovering and strengthening your personal power. Attracting success, a more meaningful life surrounded by valuable people and significant experiences will translate into continuous growth.