What You NEED to Control if You Want to Achieve Your Goals and Avoid Burnout as a Humanitarian and International Development Leader

What is the one thing you must control to achieve your goals as a humanitarian and development leader?

As a leader, external events and circumstances can often feel overwhelming and uncontrollable, but mastering your mindset is the key to navigating these challenges and making a lasting impact.

In this episode you will:

• Understand how controlling your thoughts empowers you to handle external challenges effectively.
• Learn how influential leaders maintained their mindset to achieve remarkable resilience and impact.
• Discover actionable strategies to shift your thinking and become the hero of your own leadership story.

Play this episode now to unlock the power of your mindset and take control of your leadership journey!

Inspired by the quote by Marcus Aurelius:

You have power over your mind. Not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

In today's episode learn the one thing that you need to have control over in order to achieve your goals as a humanitarian development leader.

Welcome to The Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast, the podcast helping humanitarian and development supervisors make a greater impact by taking control of your time, leading more inclusively and empowering your team all the while avoiding stress, burnout, and overwhelm. I'm your host, leadership coach and former aid worker, Torrey Peace.

Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hello, my aspiring modern humanitarian and development leader. Today's quick quote episode is inspired by the following quote by Marcus Aurelius, former Roman emperor, and famous for being a stoic. He says, "You have power over your mind. Not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." So one more time, "you have power over your mind,

not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."

So when we think of some of the most extreme situations, which have really tested human resilience over time. And for me, some that come to my mind are Martin Luther king Jr. in the civil rights movement and all the pain he had to endure while also avoiding violence. Or Nelson Mandela who spent so many years in prison. Or Wangari Muthai who saved big sections of forest in Kenya while being severely persecuted. The one thing that all of them had control over and maintained control over that no one else could touch was their mindset.

Their thinking.

We are the sole owner of our own thoughts. We may not be able to control others actions or external events or circumstances, but we can control the way we think about them. As Marcus Aurelius mentions, when we understand that we have control over our thinking, there is great strength in that. As a modern humanitarian and development leader, the more you take control of your thinking, the more power you will have. That is the more intentional you are about the way you are thinking, the more power you will have. The less of a victim, you will be because you will realize that your entire experience of life is based on your thinking. The ability to maintain a certain mindset is what allowed Viktor Frankl to survive the concentration camps while thousands of others in the exact same situation were not able to survive. It was his thinking that gave him the resilience the way he was thinking and the power over his thinking and realizing that no one else could make him think a certain way. That is what helped him get through that very difficult time. So it's our mindset that makes us a victim or a hero of our story. When we see ourselves as having control over our time, or being able to say no to extra work without harming or hurting others, or being able to ask our team for solutions. This mindset will lead us to feel empowered to be able to go through and do these things. But if we see ourselves as having no control in these situations: that we are helpless, that we have to attend all the meetings, that we have to always be available, that we have to always have the answers, then we will act accordingly and be a prisoner to our own thinking.

So, how do you want to be more intentional about the way you see the world?

How might your current way of thinking be creating unwanted results in your work and life? We may not have power over outside events, but we do have power over how we think about them. The first step is to understand that we have a choice. And that is how we have power over our results.

All right on next week's episode, find out one proven way of leading that will help your team share more ideas and lead to greater innovation. Until then keep evolving. Bye for now.

Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do? Or do you let them figure it out for themselves? Understanding your leadership style is the first step to deciding what's working for you and what's not. To find out your leadership style, take my free quiz "what is your leadership style?" You'll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team, and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.

Just click on the link in the show notes, www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz,. Fill out your quiz and click submit. So what are you waiting for? Go to www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz, and discover your leadership style now. Your team will thank you for it.