How To Create A Leadership Growth Plan: Lesson #2

Growth is not an automatic process. We don’t get better without intentional effort. This new year could be a game changer for your career and impact if you choose to develop yourself like never before. This could be the year your future self thanks you for the rest of your life. So, what are you going to do to improve your skills as a leader? What will you do to go to a new level in your abilities this year?

Here is the second lesson:

Lesson #2: Collect Your Resources

If you are going to maximize your potential, you need resources that will help you. Once you determine the categories you want to learn about (Lesson #1), you must gather what you need. You do this by:

• Researching the best resources in the area you want to learn in
• Asking others (that you respect) what resources they are learning from
• Curiously hunting for something worth learning about

You see, you have to consume your mind with information, for it will lead to transformation.

The mind acts as a cognitive library storing information from everything you encounter. As your conscious mind experiences stimuli, your subconscious stores the data in a very deep and detailed system. Think of your mind as a library with thousands of categories where you have been and are cataloging everything you experience. As you experience something, your mind instantly goes to work writing what you’re learning into a book stored on the shelf of that category.

For example, what comes to mind if I tell you to think of Africa? Most likely, you are thinking of Elephants, safaris, the natives, deserts, etc… When I told you to think of Africa, your mind went to the shelf labeled Africa, and you pulled out a book of information you have been writing your whole life. You may have thought of particular things about Africa based on your experience, especially if you’ve been there or lived there. I instantly think of some friends that live in Africa, along with many other images I have associated in my Africa book. The more experiences and information you have concerning Africa, the more you can access it.

We don’t go to our potential as though it is waiting for us somewhere; we grow to our potential by learning day by day. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” So as you journey through resources, your mind will stretch with examples, tips, and strategies to empower your leadership ability. Your cognitive awareness will become a leadership library archive when you are filled with ideas. You will then be able to access this library in any given situation and know how to lead through it. As your cognitive leadership library increases, it catapults your ability to lead effectively.

This is why leaders are readers; they constantly fill their minds with quotes, stories, experiences, stats, and ideas to level up. Great leadership starts with information, and this information leads to transformation. The transformation begins in them first and then transforms the world around them.

Collect resources and start to consume them every moment you can.

Next week I will unpack the next lesson on How To Create A Leadership Growth Plan…be ready!