Empowering Yourself in the WorkPlace and Beyond

The Lululemon community blog is one that I read regularly – it, along with others like Athleta Chi and The World According to OmGal, inspires me to use physical activity as a way to combat stress, set goals, and realize that a healthy balance between work and life can make me better at both.

PerkettPR employees seem to manifest this thinking and we have several marathon runners among our ranks, in addition to hot yoga addicts, belly dancers, skiers, Karate and Taekwondo enthusiasts and triathletes.    

This particular community post by Olive, who is spending 30 days living the Lululemon manifesto, made me pause – and then take action.  Olive writes, “Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself (for real this time).”

Maybe a certain client or reporter has you questioning your value and ability despite your best efforts. Maybe you’re still beating yourself up after eating another slice of pie. Maybe you’re too busy to work out, sleep enough, read a book, and grow a garden.

Add your (probably too long) list here of the things that sap your positive energy – that you’re not good enough at, or that you wish you could do better at.

That’s enough of that. To be successful at our lives, as well as our jobs, we have to start by accepting ourselves – a never-ending process – but one that’s worth the time and effort.

Here are a few things Olive has learned that are worth sharing:

• Loving yourself means committing to participating in your own life.
• Learn to forgive and grow from perceived failures (we often forget that these feelings pass).
• Identify flaws and what you are doing with or about them.
• Learn to interrupt my inner voice, especially when it starts going on those long-winded rants about you not being good enough, or in control, or perfect (you know the usual cycle of darts you throw at yourself).
• I learned that I can talk myself in or out of anything. Someone once told me that you can rationalize and justify all day long, all life long and do nothing to live a better life. Or, you can begin to realize that you actually hold the secret within you to take your life or at least your attitude towards life in any direction you choose.

After realizing only you can empower yourself, the next step is about goal setting. In PR we’re all about this – we develop a thoughtful, forward-thinking, strategic PR plan that aligns with our clients goals. We benchmark against is regularly and make adjustments as those goals or strategies change. Why don’t we all do that for ourselves in our personal lives? Maybe you do. But if you don’t maybe now is the time to start.

Write down your short and long-term goals four times a year. Two personal, two business and two health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. I am in the process of setting these goals for myself. I ran my first ½ marathon in June and completing it has inspired me to keep running and to formalize some other goals I have. I’ve heard people say that running is a mental sport and I agree. In my experience, my body will do what I ask of it if I train properly, and fuel it well. It’s my head that keeps holding me back saying: you can’t finish this run, you’ll never be fast enough, you’re crazy to try this, you’re not good enough, etc.

This video, Jessica’s Daily Affirmation, always gives me a boost. I especially like when she says, “my whole imagination is greeeeeat!”

I’m pretty sure most things in life are “mental sports,” so setting goals and checking in on them is a good way to keep those negative thoughts at bay. Do you already set goals? How do you track them? Do you keep them private or share them? We would love to hear your thoughts on how you empower yourself in the workplace and beyond.