The ABC's of Empowerment

When asked to give a talk about empowerment at a recent event, my immediate reaction was,  "how much time do I have?" 

Empowerment is a loaded word.  Wikipedia has a few interesting definitions.  In a nutshell, empowerment means to give power to someone. This meaning implies that someone lacks power in whatever form it may be:  economic, social, political, etc. Empowerment in this example is an external change is someone's life.

I consider personal empowerment the key to reaching all other forms.  Personal empowerment manifests in increased self-confidence, ability to learn from mistakes, ability to manage one's life and make changes as needed. These are all internal changes within the person, which are hard to notice.

Can we really empower ourselves? How?  Why is it hard to do? 

Yes, we can give power to ourselves! We just need to become aware that we are the CEO's of our lives.  We can activate our self-empowering thinking by learning to appreciate our skills, abilities and strengths. By the way, do we know what those are?

Think of empowerment as a transformative experience. Like the caterpillar becoming a butterfly.  It takes some time but the result is life changing.

Comments

[Daisy]

I wish there were more conversations about the importance of empowerment! I feel that as a professional/woman, I sometimes do not give myself permission to praise my skills and strength because of inexperience, fear of seeming arrogant, self-doubt etc. I can relate to this idea of it being a transformative experience that takes time.

[Wallace28Cherry]

Don't have money to buy a car? Worry no more, just because that is real to take the credit loans to solve such kind of problems. Thus take a short term loan to buy all you need.