Ponder this question for a minute…are you leading your life?

Usually, when I ask this question to someone the immediate answer is an emphatic YES! And yet, when we dig deeper into how they feel about the leadership they are giving to themselves, many people are stumped. Or worse, they actually start listing out all of the reasons (and sometimes the people) that are getting in the way of them leading the life they want.

It is infinitely fascinating how many of us forget that we are responsible for how we choose to see, think, and feel — and that the results we do and do not get in life have a lot to do with — ourselves! The work of David Emerald and Donna Zajonic, creators of The Power of TED* and 3 Vital Questions: Transforming Workplace Drama, has inspired me for over a decade in terms of how I lead my life.

Understanding that the drama we all experience in work and life — what’s wrong, broken, who is against us, why something won’t work — is one way to meet our life experience. Waking up to the other choice, of empowerment, creating our experience each day, and focusing on outcomes was for me, as David says “…a blinding flash of the obvious.” Understanding that how we choose to react or respond to life and work circumstances has a lot to do with the results we get.

(Learn more about this powerful work here: https//www.3vitalquestions.com)

So what does this have to do with successful teams and pharmacies? I recently got to share my passion for creating thriving workplaces via our webinar series in a session titled The Cost of Drama to Your Work, Your Company, and You Personally: How The Power of Choice Changes Everything. We explored the importance of choice in that session and I wanted to unpack a few more things here that we did not get to explore in the session.

Think back to when you first started working on a team or in a pharmacy.  I suspect you, like many around you, were likely enthusiastic, maybe slightly skeptical, hopeful, or some mixture of emotions about how you were going to work with others. Yet, starting something new also represents change. And we all know that all change is very personal. And as time goes on, more change comes, in the form of new technology, regulations, (more) new team members, customer demands – well the list goes on and on. Working in complexity is certainly an aspect of life that can absolutely create some drama.

It is easy (and pretty instinctive) to point the finger of blame at others — team members, the leadership team, the regulatory agencies, customers…when things are not working out like you thought they would. I would offer that before you point the finger, take a look in the mirror and see if your self-leadership is helpful to the team first. When you accept responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and actions, it does a few things:

• You take ownership of how you are contributing to or taking away from the success of the team and the pharmacy

• You demonstrate maturity and self-leadership in your ability to deal with reality

• You choose to see yourself, your team members, and your customers as co-creators

• You demonstrate courage and respect (and for that matter openness, commitment, and focus) by working with your team to address unhelpful behaviors, actions, and seek solutions to better teaming, instead of blaming

Choosing empowerment is an incredibly enjoyable way of working, creating, learning, and contributing. Every day will not be the same, they will not all go as planned, and there will be things that do not work out as expected — and this is reality…which we love! It is how we choose to meet that reality (the good, bad, and the unexpected) that is the thing. Remember — you are always at choice and how you lead yourself is a huge deal in how enjoyable your work can be.