I get asked the question in leadership all the time…”Who is the most important person to lead on my team?” The answer…YOURSELF.  You are the 1st and most important person you should lead.  And fittingly the hardest person to lead is yourself.  You see, you can’t lead others somewhere where you haven’t been.  You can’t output what you haven’t input.  You can’t give what you don’t have.  Too many leaders are Travel Agents rather than Tour Guides.  Travel Agents tell you where to go even though they may have never been there.  Tour Guides show you the way from experience, because they have been there and they know what to expect.  To be a great Tour Guide you need to take yourself on the journey of growth.  So the most important person you should lead is yourself.

You can’t wait for others to set the bar for you.  If you are depending on others to motivate, challenge, and teach you, then you have it backwards.  Others are there to HELP motivate, challenge, and teach us, but it should not ONLY come from them.  If it does, then you will be completely dependent on your boss, pastor, parent, friend, etc…  Being at the mercy of others is not a good place to be.  Successful people are self-leaders first.  They don’t wait for motivation, they create motivation within themselves.  They don’t wait to be challenged, they think through ways to challenge themselves.  They don’t wait for someone to teach them, they go out and teach themselves.

It’s been said, “If I could kick the person responsible for my problems, I wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week!” We can’t play the blame game and point to others for our failures and apathy.  Take responsibility for yourself and make sure you are leading yourself well.  Here are 3 ways to lead yourself well…

1. Be Proactive

Be the kind of person that is active before you are forced to be active.  Pro-Active means that you start before you start.  Be the initiator for yourself.  Be the one to step up for yourself and take action.  If you wait for a spark of inspiration, you may be waiting a long time.  But if you activate your life, you will begin to create inspiration.  I HATE to run, but I LOVE it.  What I mean is, I would much rather wake up, be lazy, get ready, drink some coffee, and leave for work(which I do all too often), but I know that is not the healthiest way for me to start the day.  It seems that I rarely wake up ready to exercise in the morning.  No, I have to MAKE the decision early on and let that activate my momentum.  If I waited to run on the days that I felt like it, I would probably NEVER run (which is always the case when I leave it to feelings).  I have heard of studies that prove that motivation comes when you start to do something motivating, not when you wait for motivation to come along.

2. Be Purposeful

Make sure that you lead your purposes.  Don’t waste time on things that don’t fall into the category of your ultimate gifts and purpose.  If you want to lead yourself well, be purposeful about how you invest your time, talent, and treasures.  Hope is a great feeling, but it is never to be substituted for hard work.  Hard work and dedication to your growth and development will take you far.  We are called to be purposeful with our life.  Have a plan for your life and follow that plan as God leads you.  This is the way to lead yourself.  Focus on areas that you need to better lead yourself in.  Which areas do you need to push yourself in?

3. Be Pliable

Being pliable means being able to stretch yourself and challenge yourself beyond what you think you can do.  Faith is about being pliable in God’s hands.  If we only did what we thought we could do, we wouldn’t do much.  When we do what God says we can do, we can do anything.  We have to lead ourself not only in the safe zone but in the danger zone too.  The areas that send a warning signal to our fears and self doubt.  WARNIG, WARNING, WARNING: you are stepping into the unknown.  If we are going to step out into great things with our life, it is going to require us to be pliable.  We are the clay in the Potter’s hands….not the potter.  Our job is to be pliable and moldable.  I remember a pastor I once served saying, “Blessed are the flexible for they will be stretched.” When we stretch we can reach greater things.  Things that we never would have been able to reach if we had stayed in our comfort zone.

Lead yourself FIRST!!!