If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep walking
- Buddha
At Lead North, we aim to understand your life’s purpose and your True North, which is your orientating point when the world around you is spinning and leaving you disorientated. By helping you to tune into your inner compass, you can advance towards your True North by making decisions based on your values, passions and intrinsic motivations. When you align your goals with your core self, you can authentically lead yourself and others on this journey.
So, what pulls us off course from our True North? Leading a business or pursuing personal development is difficult in such complex and uncertain times. When you’re surrounded by external pressures, you may find yourself automatically reacting to the factors that feel out of your control. This is a reaction associated with a brain response called fight or flight, where parts of your brain that oversee your autopilot kick into action. This can come across as defensiveness, criticism of yourself and others, and feeling distracted by worries; all of which negatively impact your relationships, the quality of your work and your wellbeing. However, the worry you may feel also has a useful function; it’s signalling to you that you’ve detoured too far from your True North, and you need to find a way to reorient yourself. But you can’t control all the external factors you face, and you probably can’t predict the future either. Therefore, what can you do?
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”
-Victor Frankl
You can choose your response. You can switch off your autopilot, and function as the pilot instead, in turn navigating your chosen course. A responsive approach involves u-turning on all of those negative defensive behaviours, and approaching opportunities for growth instead.
You achieve this by activating the executive functioning in your brain through a focus on the present moment and with an open-minded outlook. This open-mindedness relies on looking at life through a learner’s lens. Embrace your inner child who doesn’t know the answers but is curious to find out, and is adventurous about the possibilities, rather than relying on your inner critic who can sometimes be judgemental about you and others and is scared to try new directions for fear of failure.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
-Shunryu Suzuki
By embracing a learning mindset, you can reframe your everyday situations as opportunities to learn and grow. The skills that will help you to cultivate this more responsive approach have been developed within the exciting field of Positive Psychology, which is the scientific study of how humans achieve optimal functioning. The techniques we use are grounded in science, so we know it works and how it works. This means that we can help you to find ways to apply effective techniques in ways that are relevant and meaningful to you. We also know that coaching is one of the most powerful tools to support real growth, so we integrate key concepts and models from Coaching Psychology into everything we do. This approach recognises you as your own expert, where our role is to draw out your strengths, experiences and resources to help you be at your best. By providing a reflective space to gain clarity on your direction and explore opportunities for moving forward, you can start to gain momentum towards your goals.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
-Mark Twain
You’ve made the first important step by recognising a need to change your direction if you want to achieve lasting improvements. Now let us help you in setting your direction and embarking on your transformational journey.