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‘Self-Leadership’ Is the Productivity Tool That Rewards Your Deepest Needs
A middle ground between fluffy self-care and rigid self-discipline
While other people were managing their pandemic stress by baking sourdough and tie-dyeing their entire wardrobes, I was browsing the internet for stuff I didn’t need — candles, throw pillows, pajama sets, anything that could make the time in lockdown feel more like a cozy choice than a life-or-death necessity. At least once a week, a new dire news report sent me instinctively back to my online shopping cart, as though the things I was buying were amulets, each new package offering protection against my gnawing anxiety.
I eagerly tracked shipments, ripped open boxes, and waited to feel better. What I felt instead, though, was a mounting sense of guilt — for spending money on small pick-me-ups when so many people were struggling, for ignoring the goal my husband and I had set to pay off our debt, for throwing willpower to the wind in the name of self-care. Eventually, I looked at my bank account and decided: I needed to tighten up. This would be the start of a new, disciplined me, one who worked too hard to get caught up in shopping for indulgences, and was too practical to be comforted by them anyway.
It may not surprise you to learn that rigid self-discipline didn’t do wonders for my stress, either. I needed a more balanced approach — one that would somehow move me forward without depressing me. Something in between the fluffy self-care of retail therapy and an all-work-no-play mindset.
I found that middle ground in a concept called “self-leadership:” the ability to determine your big-picture needs in a given moment, and to steer yourself in that direction in the now. Maybe that means ordering a favorite meal after a particularly lonely week, or maybe it means closing the delivery tab and putting that cash toward bigger goals. Either way, you’re positively influencing your future outcomes by being deliberate in your present actions.
“We have the tendency to go to extremes, to be too self-critical and regimented, or the other way around,” says Grace Dowd, a Texas-based therapist. “Self-leadership helps us align our lives with what we value and accomplish our goals.” It may sound like a…
