As we start a new week, we’re finishing the series on self-leadership, as we turn to the fifth of Michael Hyatt’s five “R’s” of managing our energy. They are: Rest, Refreshment, Recreation, Relationship and Reflection. If you missed the previous five posts, you may want to read them to get the background for these posts on self-leadership as well as to understand Hyatt’s basic premise that we can’t manage time, because it’s a fixed resource, while our energy is manageable and will determine the level of our productivity over time.
Reflection is a powerful component of self-leadership. After all, the unexamined life is not worth living, as our friend Socrates reminded us millennia ago. Reflection may include many aspects. It may simply be stopping to look back over the previous week or month, and asking ourselves whether we led to the best of our ability, whether we managed our energy well, and thus were more productive than in previous weeks or months. We may ask ourselves whether we were faithful to our personal and corporate visions. Many reflection questions may be asked, and when we’re honest in our responses, we can make adjustments so we will be more effective in the present and into the future.
Another component of reflection is meditation and or prayer. While many definitions exist for both words, as I’m using them, meditation is reflecting on Scripture, or other biblical truth in order to seat those truths in our minds and wills. Prayer is communicating with God, and an important aspect of that communication is listening as well as talking. While some of you may not believe in God, or at least not the God of the Bible who reveals Himself most clearly through Jesus Christ, taking the time to meditate and pray is a significant part of reflection for those of us who are people of faith. I encourage you to consider this aspect in your self-leadership, because it is difficult to lead if we don’t have an anchor for our lives.
As leaders, we need to reflect on every aspect of our lives, the first four “R’s” offer us opportunities for reflection. Are we getting enough rest to be as effective as we can be? When it comes to refreshment, are we eating and drinking the right things? Do our bodies demonstrate that? Are we exercising and playing in appropriate amounts, neither too little nor too much? How are our significant relationships doing? Are we investing enough time in making sure they are healthy and growing? Again, the answers to these questions will help us to see where we need to make adjustments in our lives. Unless we stop to reflect, we will not be able to lead effectively and we certainly won’t be as productive as we can be over the long haul.
Self-leadership helps us understand what we need to be and do in order to be the public leaders we are called and created to be. Taking the time to care for ourselves is vital. When I was in Boy Scouts and took the lifesaving merit badge I learned the first rule of lifesaving: Save yourself first. If we aren’t healthy and growing ourselves, we won’t be able to lead others.
Here’s to leading better by taking time to reflect–today!