How do you lead yourself? Do you like the way you do it? Are you a good boss? We're talking today all about how to craft your destiny using the art of self leadership.
Welcome to the modern creative woman exploring the art and science of creativity. This is the podcast for women who want to elevate their creativity and start applying creative thinking in their everyday lives. I'm your hostess and creativity expert, Doctor Amy Backos. I'm a licensed psychologist and a registered and board certified art therapist with almost three decades helping women live their authentic lives at the Modern Creative Woman, we are obsessed with helping you build your creativity and self leadership. Through her conversations and creative insights, I'll provide simple tricks and practices that will help take the mystery out of the creative process so you can start each day feeling empowered, creative, and ready to take on whatever comes your way. Let's get started!
I got back recently from my Modern Creative Woman writing retreat, and I was able to focus on my work, my vivid vision, and my creativity, and I feel so refreshed and energized. I want to talk today about self leadership, and making the time and space for you to build up your authentic style of self leadership. We're given so many models in the world, from our parents and childhood caregivers all the way out through political leaders, institutional leaders, friends, bosses, and it becomes imperative that we pick and choose the way we want to be leaders, rather than simply modeling ourself after what is presented to us. There are some incredible leaders that I've had the chance to work with, and I'm still working with a group of women for almost 30 years now, focusing on anti-racism. And Mary Bridget is the woman who started all of that so long ago in my life. And I really appreciate the opportunity to have powerful women leaders setting examples.
So today I want to talk about what is self leadership. And then I want to give you ten ways that you can use creativity to enhance your own self leadership, so that you can become the modern, creative woman you've always wanted to be. I spend a little bit of time crafting a definition that I thought would fit for us here in the modern, creative community. And a modern, creative woman who is a self leader is unapologetically authentic and fearlessly pursuing her passions and empowering others to do the same. That was my initial definition, and then I had a little modification. The idea of fearlessly pursuing our passions seems almost impossible to think about moving forward without fear. So I want to modify that one section a little bit and talk about courageously pursuing our passions. And the really unique thing about courage is it only shows up in the context of fear. We don't suddenly wake up feeling courageous. We take courageous action. And when we have fear, it's an opportunity to call up the courage to act in a way that's in alignment with our values. So my revised definition a modern creative woman who is a self leader is unapologetically authentic, courageously pursuing her passions and empowering others to do the same. I have ten strategies that I want to share with you that can give you some creative ideas around self leadership.
So number one, mindful morning rituals. We really have to start our day off intentionally. I don't know about you, but for most of my life I would wake up worried I would have my to do list on my mind or something that I was concerned about or anxious about would start running through my head. And now, on top of that, we've added the alarm clock on her phone. We pick up our phone the very first action in the morning. There's a lot of reasons why we need a more mindful morning ritual. I have some very specific mantras I've talked to you about in other episodes that I start my morning off with, and for you, think about what could work just ten 20 minutes in the morning. Journaling. Meditation. A mindful cup of coffee. It's really important to set aside just a little bit of time to ground yourself and align with your creative goals each morning, so that you can start the day in a positive mood. Second, creative exploration. If you're an artist, I bet you already do this, but you can start thinking about applying it to your own self leadership. When I think about creative exploration, it's about dedicating a regular time to explore some kind of new creative outlet. Might be going to a museum or a gallery. It could be painting when you usually prefer drawing might be poetry, collage, just trying a different technique that you normally aren't doing, and this is really the opportunity to play. Allow yourself the freedom to play. Discover new facets of your creativity.
Number three mindful movement. This takes no time at all in your day and brings so many benefits. So incorporating movement into your daily life mindfully can be as simple as every time you get up from your desk and go for a walk just down the hallway, you focus on standing tall or walking slowly. Every time you sit back down, you take a little stretch, move your arms above your head, and then have a seat again. These things require no extra time in your day, but you would be surprised at how incredibly impactful this kind of movement can be. Another way you can add mindful movement is to stretch your body before you get out of bed. Try it tomorrow morning and see what it feels like to start stretching your legs, your arms and it. You'll notice your body waking up. If you think about animals, they stretch before they stand up. They wiggle around a little bit. It's a really powerful way to put some energy into your body and pull you straight into the present moment.
What is your vivid vision? Figuring this out in step number four, when we create a visual representation of our goals and dreams, it allows us to externalize and take perspective on what it is that we most desire. So you can gather images, words and symbols that just resonate with you. Save them up and use them to craft a vision board or some kind of three dimensional art piece that inspires and motivates you towards self leadership. On my writing retreat, I created my vivid vision of the modern creative woman using collage on a shopping bag to give my vision a three dimensional quality, and I used images and a little bit of paint that spoke to how I imagined I wanted the future of this community to be.
Number five is all about your daily reflection, and research shows that a few moments of reflection at the end of the day, especially around gratitude appreciation, can really enhance our mindset. So taking time every day to reflect on your experiences could be your lessons, what you would like to do differently the next day. I think journaling is very powerful. You can do quiet contemplation. However, pen to paper makes a huge difference. There's all kinds of research that shows writing. Not just thinking about what's important to us can be the difference between a lack of feeling successful and actual, tangible success. Journaling can help you cultivate your self-awareness. Really deepen your understanding of yourself as a creative leader and the modern creative woman. Gratitude Journal gives you an easy way to do that kind of reflection in your life. When you think about reflecting on being a creative leader. We're all leaders in whatever aspect of life that we're focusing on in that moment. We lead our own health choices, our work choices, our family and relationship choices. So these daily reflections give us an opportunity to notice where we can have an impact or make a change. And speaking of other people, number six recommendation is setting boundaries, practicing saying no to activities or commitments that drain you can have a huge impact on your accomplishments and going for your dreams. Saying yes to too many things can really distract us from our creative pursuits and our self leadership. I like to think of setting boundaries as the most powerful act of self leadership, because it honors your time and your priorities. You can think of no as your personal security guard who protects your time and energy. Saying yes to too many things is that far away from anything. I talked to so many women who want to say yes to a lot of activities. They're so afraid they're going to miss an opportunity or a possibility. And it's simply the opposite is true. When we narrow down our choices to what's most meaningful or most interesting or most impactful, then more opportunities can present themselves. We can't accomplish everything all at once, continuing along with the idea of. Working with other people.
Number seven is all about collaborating creatively. We often think of group projects as a real nightmare from our high school days or even our college days. But if we seek out opportunities to collaborate with other creative women, we can have a really powerful impact in a much larger way. It might be that you're brainstorming with a group of women or are working on collaborative projects. I like to think of parallel play here. You might all be working on something similar and you can check in later. Then it could be a brainstorming session or a much more collaborative project. It could be a knitting group. I'm in a mastermind group, I'm in a coaching group, and I have a couple of friends that I talk business with. Working with other people can spark new ideas and really expand your horizons in thinking about women and self leadership. Another way to do this is to think about the current group projects that you have, perhaps at work or at a volunteer job, and see if you can approach it more creatively, and you can ask yourself how things might be done more creatively or what else might be possible.
Number eight is about telling the good story and reframing failure. I think there's a lot of conversation here in California, out of Silicon Valley, that says to embrace your failures, that failures give you the information you need. And I think that's true. I like to imagine a better story that we can shift our perspective on failure to really embraced opportunities and lessons learned from a setback. A better way to think of this is that action that didn't work is really a stepping stone on your creative journey towards self leadership. One example that comes to mind for me recently is if you didn't meet a certain goal by a certain timeframe, and I didn't meet my yearly goal for 2023 by the end of the year, and in that moment I thought, well, did I fail or did I just not finish the goal yet? And once I asked that question, I got so much more motivated. Oh, I just didn't finish on this arbitrary timeline that I created.
Number nine is really mindful time management. Change your relationship with time. And I have so much more of it. If you're focusing on what's most important to you. You'll realize you have all the time there is to do those things that you love. So when we practice mindful time management, we can prioritize those tasks that really align with our values and our goals. One thing that's helped me a lot is to block off time each week. That's dedicated time just for my creative pursuits, and taking the time to honor that space, really keep boundaries around. It has been so important for me in my own creative process. It's improved my patience because I know I'll have this dedicated time, and it allows me to stay focused on whatever I'm working on, knowing that I have creative coming. 2s One mistake that a lot of women I work with make is thinking that they can squeeze in what's most important to them after they finish their To-Do list, prioritizing what's most important. Make the days meaningful. Your to do list will always get done. But when we ignore our values and what's most important to us and think we're going to do that later, those things won't get done. And it leads to some significant guilt and disappointment.
And my number ten is around self-compassion. Self-compassion is an essential tool to being a self leader. Cultivating self-compassion is really this very necessary aspect of self leadership. When you treat yourself with kindness and understanding and acceptance of what's happening can have a huge impact on how you proceed. If you're spending so much psychic energy focused on judging yourself, thinking something is wrong, you're losing energy for what you find to be important. While I was on my writing retreat, I was doing a particular piece of artwork and I started feeling so frustrated. Why is it not looking the way I want it to look? This is not the image I was picturing, and I was kind of chattering on in my head, being very critical of what I was making. And then I had a more productive thought, which was, I'm just going to let the art be what it is going to be now. I've already laid down some artwork. It's starting to take shape. It already has a form. I'm going to let it be what it is without judging it. And after that it flowed, and I was able to complete that part of it. Feeling actually really great. Letting go of that self-judgment is essential. And that also means when you catch yourself judging yourself, you don't throw more judgment on top of it. You're truly worthy of your own love and care on this creative journey.
Have a wonderful rest of your week. Now that you know about how to use your creativity, what will you create?
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