Session 1:
R– Relationships
“Love and accept yourself.”
What this means:
I think this phrase is quite important to know and learn. It means you need to remember your worth, and you need to accept yourself for who you are, and don’t be mad at it. Don’t try to change, don’t try to be someone else, get comfortable with yourself. This phrase is also a reminder that you need to be kind to yourself in order to succeed. For instance, if you are trying to accomplish something, whatever it is, you absolutely need to be nice to yourself. Don’t let the negative thoughts get to you, because if you do, they will try to tear you down. The thoughts will tell you that you aren’t capable of such things, and that you should just quit because it is getting hard. You need to take those thoughts and reverse them; Tell yourself the opposite of what those negative thoughts are saying. ‘I can do this, I am capable, I have to keep going.’ This mindset will bend you in the right direction and will make it much easier for you to get through the tough times. This quote is also a great reminder you not to be hard on yourself, and to try to believe that you’ll get through it. You need to be kind to yourself and know that everyone has struggles, and the best way to get through them is by believing in yourself. Overall, I think the most important thing that this quote is saying, is don’t be afraid to be yourself.
Why I chose this:
I picked this quote because it relates a lot to my personal experiences. For as long as I can remember, I have always been very hard on myself whenever I’m doing something that I don’t understand, or that’s hard for me to do. The fact that I do this, makes it extremely difficult to finish any task successfully. There is always that little voice in my head asking why I do not know how to do it. I know first-hand what it’s like when you don’t believe in yourself, and that’s one of the reasons I want to get better at loving and accepting myself. This is a goal of mine because I feel like it is something that will actually help me a lot later in life. Once I get better at accepting myself, I can teach others so they can learn how to do it. I can teach them how important it is to love and accept themselves. It makes me happy to know that one day I can teach people the same thing I’m learning right now.
How I can apply this into future leadership activities:
The first thing I need to do to incorporate this into my life is being willing to do so. Then I should make sure I am staying persistent through the process, because this is not an easy goal to accomplish, and it will be a lot harder if I am not motivated. I think there are also some things I can do that involve a journal. When I do something and I get negative thoughts, I can write them down on a piece of paper and then cross them out and/or tear them up. This is a method I’ve used before to get a visual representation of getting rid of things that are in your head. I think it would be a good method to use in this particular situation, because it can help me be more optimistic. All of the times I have used this method, it has worked, but that isn’t a guarantee that it will always work. So if it doesn’t end up working, I can just resort back to keeping a growth mindset and staying positive. I also think that when you are first trying to incorporate something into your life, one of the most important things is to know is that things can’t happen over night, and they take time. They will most likely be challenging, but if you take your time, and be nice to yourself, it has a good chance of working.
Section 2:
E- Equipping
“The law of significance – One is too small a number to achieve greatness”
What this means:
This quote is basically saying that if you want to be great, you cannot do it alone. Thinking about so many of the greatest inventions in the world, a lot of them were invented by teams of people, not just one. If a singular person tries to do something by themselves, sure it may work, but the majority of the time it is more than one person. When a whole group of people work together on something, it will not necessarily make the process quicker, but it will probably make the process easier, because people can communicate their ideas, and they can work all together and incorporate their collaborative ideas into whatever they are trying to accomplish. When people think about working together, they mostly think about how some people are hard to get along with, or they don’t like working in groups. That ties into a lot of the other rules about working with others, because when you find your successful team where everyone works well together, they can accomplish so many incredible things. An example of this is Galileo and the invention of the telescope. He is often credited to the invention of the telescope, however he just built off the studies of a man named Hans Lippershay. At the time, Hans had been experimenting with the magnifying properties of glass for a while. When Galileo heard about this, he made improvements to the existing models, and he “invented” the telescope. Without Hans, Galileo may not have invented what is now such a useful tool.
Why I chose this:
I chose this because I really like the notion of it. Even though that sounds very general, I really do think that a lot of people do not realize how many things are made by a group of people, rather than just the one person who is credited. Even if technically there was only one person who gathered all the information together, or built off the info that was already there, there was still a group of people responsible for what lead up to that success. I can relate this to my personal life because I am very good at giving people the credit that they deserve, because I know what it feels like to not get credit for something that you worked hard on. I also think that it is very useful for me to work in groups, because everyone can collaborate ideas, and make a more in-depth, and interesting result. I like to be able to talk to others when I am curious, or I don’t know how something works rather than just silently wondering to myself what I need to do. It is especially helpful to work with others because you can learn how other people think, and how you can accommodate their needs, and vice versa. That is why I like to work with others rather than myself.
How I can apply this into future leadership activities:
I think that whenever I am organizing an event or lesson, I will try to make sure that people are working in groups. Reminding people of what they can do to help and/or encourage others. If people are not working well together because they are new to meeting each other, maybe a good idea would be to do some team-building activities or games. This way people can become more comfortable with each other and they can work better as a team. Another thing I could do to incorporate this is to let others share their ideas with the other people in the group, and everyone can build off of them to make a final result. That final result will have been contributed to by everyone, and then everyone can get credit. This way everyone will feel like they got what they deserved.
Session 3
A – attitude
“Our attitude determines our approach to life”
What this means:
This quote means that however your attitude is, it will affect your life. Whether it is negative or positive, your attitude will determine. As an example, if someone wakes up in the morning and says, “This is a good day and I’m going to do great things today!”, then they will most likely have a good day. However if someone wakes up in the morning and says “Today is going so badly, I just want it to be tomorrow already!”, then they have that negative attitude which is making them have a bad day. When you listen to the positive thoughts in your head about how you’re going to have a good day, then you can push away the negative things that happen in that day. However if you listen to the negative thoughts only, it will make you think that everything is going wrong and making your bad day worse. For instance you could stub your toe and think “Ow that hurt, but it’s ok because it will feel better soon.”, or you could think “OW! Of course I stubbed my toe, everything is going horribly wrong today!”. There is a very big difference between those two statements, because one of them is saying that yes it hurt, but it’s not the end of the world, and it will feel better soon. The other one is taking a more negative side to things and saying that of course it would happen today, because today is becoming more and more of a terrible day. The second statement will cause your brain to think that that is true, even if its not, and will put you in that bad mindset and you will have a bad day.
Why I chose this:
I chose this because I think a lot of people do not realize how much their attitude can affect their daily life. For me personally this has happened a lot, and I know its true. We had a quote in my old school, saying “choose your attitude”, and even though I don’t entirely agree with it, I think it is a very important thing to teach young kids who are easily upset and frustrated. I tried my best to follow that rule/principle all throughout my time at that school, and I know that it works. I would come to school just having a horrible day, and I was telling myself that it was going to be a bad day, because it started off bad. Every single time, I would sit in class, and my classmates were having so much fun, that I changed my mentality, and thought “you know what? I’m actually going to have a good day instead.” And then my whole day got better. It sounds like something cheesy, but truly, whatever you tell your brain, is what your brain will believe. This makes it easy to make yourself believe things that aren’t even true. That’s why we have to be especially careful of what we tell our brain, because we will take it seriously, and then think that whatever it was, was true. That is the biggest reason I chose it, because I’ve been educated on it, so I know what it can do to you.
How I can apply this into future leadership activities:
We already do it a lot but I think when I am organizing an event, or even just attending one, I like to make sure people are being positive. To each other and yourself. A lot of people say “oh, well I’m so kind to others. But-“then they go on and say that no one is kind to them. In some cases, it could be true, no one is kind to them even though they are very kind to others. Normally that is not the case though. Relating back to what I said before, when you are in a bad mood, everything seems way worse than it is. So if you aren’t being nice to yourself and causing yourself to be in a bad mood, then you will nitpick every time someone isn’t nice to you, and chalk it all up to the conclusion that no one likes you or no one is being nice to you. That is why it is very important when you’re in a group, that you uplift others, and encourage them to have a positive outlook on life, especially if they aren’t having a good day. Because bad days happen a lot, but you need to make sure it isn’t defining you, by making the whole week bad. Something I like to do when others are feeling down, is to try and cheer them up. Then they will have that encouragement, and hopefully it will make them feel a bit better.
Session 4:
L- Leadership
“Model the way”
What this means:
This principle is saying that you can show others the way to do something. You can show them what is the best way that works for you, and then help them figure out if that is the best way for them as well. If you think about it, this is kind of like visual learning. If you see someone doing something, it is easier for you to understand, rather than just being told with no demonstration. So if something needs to be done and you are working with someone who doesn’t know what to do or how to do it, don’t just tell them “this needs to be done in this order, this way.. etc.” you need to show them how it’s done, so they aren’t worried about doing it wrong. This kind of relates back to equipping, you need to equip them with the information they need. You need to physically show them, because that is the clearest way to see how something is done. Some people actually do learn just via instructions, so if they do then that’s great! But many people don’t learn like that, but they will be too confused and nervous to say anything, so they will just painstakingly try and remember the instructions that they were given, and they will probably end up unintentionally messing something up which could, in turn, mess a lot of other things up. This is why the best way to show someone how to do something is to model it for them, give them and in real life example of what they should do.
Why I chose this:
I chose this because I love showing people how to do things. I think it’s really nice to be able to help people, even when they can’ ask because they are too shy. I personally don’t like to ask for help from people I don’t know, because I get too shy. So, I like to think that when I am helping others by modeling the way, they might be too shy as well. If that is the case and they were too shy, then I was just able to help them without making them scared. I think that is something I really like to do. I also think that it takes courage to be able to show someone how to do something if you are unsure of it yourself, but then you can both work together and figure it out. You can ask each other questions if you are confused, and you can communicate with them to work out what you think is right. This principle relates to a lot of real-life experiences, and one of those is babysitting/taking care of children. Many people use the term ‘be a good role-model’. This is basically the same principle as the one listed above. It does not only need to be a task that is being demonstrated, it can also be an attitude or a behaviour, so with things like child-care, you need to model kind behaviour, and a nice attitude. That is the same kind of thing applies to modelling tasks.
How I can apply this to future leadership activities:
Something that I think I will do for future leadership events/activities is trying to make sure no one is being excluded, and everyone is helping each other out in any way they can. That way, everyone will feel comfortable and be able to do good work without struggling and getting upset. Personally, I find that when other people put effort into being kind to me and not being intimidating and uptight, I feel so much more comfortable around them. When I feel more comfortable around people, I can make better decisions and I can work more easily. I think a lot of other people are like that, and that’s why when they come into a new class, they are very shy, and they are scared to ask for help. I would love to be the person who makes others feel welcome, especially in a new environment with new people. So in future events I could ask everyone very gently if they are feeling comfortable or if they’re shy, or scared. Then if they feel okay answering and their answer is that they’re uncomfortable and they are scared in this environment we can try to accommodate to that because it is very important to me that everyone around me is content, because if we’re being honest, it is one of the worst feelings ever when you feel upset by something but you don’t have the courage to tell anyone. Once I have learned and mastered this strength, I can teach others and we can create a very hospitable environment all together so everyone’s happy.
