This post is also available in: German
What am I going to start with?
Selfleadership needs a start. This was the basic thesis in my article [Beginning]. After a few weeks full of other things on my agenda, it is now time again to take up the topic “Selfleadership” and develop the thoughts further. [Selfleadership und der Anfang]. Today we are dealing with the time aspect, which we call urgency. The thesis is: self-leadership needs urgency.
What is the urgency ?
Anyone who has understood how to start with himself, and thus make himself and his own development “ready to start”, has potentially arrived in the open space. With the first impulse we can pick up speed. We then say goodbye to the drift and randomness of life and have set a first action. Our development has been given a direction. If we are moving towards a goal and want to be faster than coincidence advances us, then from our perspective time takes on an important role. Time begins to push us.
Aber, wo es Termine gibt, dort gibt es auch Reihenfolgen und Wichtigkeitsgrade, folglich müssen „first things first“ erledigt werden, dann gibt es die Differenz zwischen Fahrt und Drift, und dann wird auch klar, dass das Handeln immer Fahrtcharakter hat, denn sein Prinzip besteht darin, schneller zu sein als die Drift in der Zufallsströmung“ (Freie Übersetzung: “But, where there are deadlines, there are also sequences and degrees of importance, therefore “first things first” have to be done, then there is the difference between travel and drift, and then it also becomes clear that action always has travel character, because its principle is to be faster than the drift in the random current”)
(Peter Sloterdijk, S.113)
Need for a decision
The possible things to do are piling up in front of us. There are easy things to do and difficult things to do, but the really relevant for our development is always the urgent. We have to make a decision! Before taking an effective initiative, we must deal with the urgencies.
The impulse to begin must not end at the stack of possibilities. Identifying the most urgent of the options is our challenge. I am convinced that everyone knows exactly what to do first. What is the postponed, the repressed, the unattractive that prevents us from escaping to the first action – the first initiative?
Power over ourselves
Whoever can find this point out of the cloud of urgency begins to feel a trace of power over himself. We encounter power at the place where decisions about urgencies are made. It is the same in all aspects of our own development and it is the same in every organization. We find the power at the place of decision. When others decide what is urgent, they have power over us.
About the heaviness of the world
After the decision we set our initiative, we get into motion and thus into the “flow of life”. Our actions therefore unfold through our decisions, which result from our assessment of the urgency. This is why our active life often feels so difficult. We work against inertia and thus attach ourselves to the constant effort. Development turns out to be a constant struggle with resistance. We feel the energy demand that the drive towards the goal demands for itself. Thus, we can give a new meaning to self-leadership.
The importance of self-leadership
Self-leadership means “coming into the world as a leader”, against the flow of resistance and through the constrictions of urgency. We are successful when we reach our goal faster than in the drift of chance.
My tip for leaders
Begin! Selfleadership is not a “nice once I do it…”, it is more like Jean-Paul Sartre: To do is to be! In the beginning there is the desire to get in touch with “leadership life” as a leader and to accept all the joy and difficulty. And the very next move is a decision to start with the urgent, the necessary. A decision has to be made for this: Where do I start? What do I put on my agenda? What can I agree with myself “non-negotiable”, what can I definitely – at all costs – bring to fruition?
Best wishes,
Peter
Do you want to deal with yourself as a leader and take your development courageously into your own hands? My book (German language) will help you to follow the path of holistic development. Give yourself the chance to make the best of your potential.
Heinz Peter Wallner, Kurt Völkl, 2017, Fokus Self-Leadership. Gesunde und wirkungsvolle Selbstführung in Zeiten hoher Komplexität, Edition Summerhill.
Would you also like to go deeper in theory? I recommend: Peter Sloterdijk’s fireworks of thoughts: Peter Sloterdijks „Zur Welt kommen – Zur Sprache kommen“, Frankfurter Vorlesungen, edition suhrkamp, Band 505, 12. Auflage, 2017. These thoughts have inspired and guided me in these lines.
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This post is also available in: German