The chicken or the egg…this has been the beginning of many discussions, debates, arguments, etc, etc.

For any that wouldn’t know (I’m not sure who you are…) but the issue concerns which came first: the chicken, or the egg, in which chickens hatch from. Where was the point of origin? Was there first a chicken that had eggs that produced more chickens? Or was there an egg that produced the first chicken that produced more eggs and so on.

Obviously, I’m not getting into a Creationism/Evolution debate; I’m merely using that metaphor to consider two points of view. The topic to be discussed here would be self-leadership, or the idea that one can lead oneself.

Over my illustrious career of reading other people’s books, I have noticed a trend toward self-motivation, desire, accomplishing the impossible, living a passionate life, to name a few. And too many times I have thought to myself, “right, ok, but what if I don’t have a burning desire, or I don’t feel motivated, or I don’t know what my passion is, what then?”

That realization can presumably lead to a fork in the road. One side of the fork could lead down the path that would legitimize the mediocrity that one typically wallows in. The other side of the fork could lead to a dogged determination to find the determination to keep going, to keep pursuing that fabled fountain of youth.

I myself faced that fork of indecision. On one hand I could take whatever color pill made me go back to sleep and slip back into the Matrix, or I could take the other one and be faced with the seemingly insurmountable odds of new revelations, new thought patterns, and the veritable destruction of the zone of comfort that I had so readily encased myself in.

Our minds are tricky things. They are like eager servants that salivate to do our bidding. They don’t place value judgments on what we think or decide, and they will even go so far as to create fictitious circumstances to back us up. Our minds can lie to us with a smile on their faces and wink in their eyes.

This is the zone of comfort that I had encased myself in. Incorrect perceptions of reality, delusions of poverty, reinforced mentalities of despair and fear – they were all there.

So now, back to the fork in the road…

I chose the one that made me confront myself. And that’s what you must do too. You must actually take the position of thinking about what you think about. Think about that; to actually take a thought and put it under a microscope for analysis. Does that thought count as something useful and worthwhile? Or does it reek of insignificance, complacency, and conformity. Ultimately that’s what I had to do, and have to do, and what you have to do as well.

As someone once said, if you continue to do the things you have always done, you’re always get what you’ve always gotten.

You don’t plant a vineyard and get corn. You don’t plant the mundane and get passion.

But the question still presents itself: How is something created in our reality that has never existed? How can we lead ourselves when we don’t know who we are, where we are in relation to where we want to be, and even if we knew the answers to those questions, this one might stop us dead in our tracks – what if we’re not trustworthy enough to lead ourselves?

Well I’m glad I asked that question on your behalf!

The answer for me started with osmosis. I delved into the lives of people that exhibited all of the fruit that I wanted in my life. I absorbed their essence which became my inspiration. I patterned my desire to think like others have thought in order to create a newness in my mind. And anything I have done, you can do too, I assure you.

I am new on the journey. I still wrestle with my own mind and how it infuriatingly reminds me of my comfort zone and how, well, comfortable I was there. It reminds me of the warmth there, the embryonic fluids that once nourished me (or so I thought). And yet my purpose lies not in the womb, but outside the belly.

For it’s outside the belly that I’m confronted with the reality of life and of responsibility. Many people never mentally remove themselves from the perceived security of the belly. They are physically born, to a set of parents that hopefully tend to their needs and parents should. Once that inclination towards reliance gets built solidly into our minds, we transfer that mode of thinking to our jobs, our families, and our government.

“I know I’m an adult, but someone should take care of me”, is the subconscious engine that drives most of the people driving most of the cars on the streets today. There is no need to self-lead because most people were never kicked out of the nest in the sense that they were forced to take real responsibility for their lives.

A caveat. Most people of course assume some responsibility for their lives. They can show up at work on time, they can make house payments, they can plan for retirement, etc.

But what I’m talking about is real responsibility. The kind that makes you question the trajectory of your life – not just the kind that ensures good eating and correct portions.

One of my favorite principles from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose. Initially this sounds confusing and not that interesting, but it’s actually fascinating.

What it means is that between a stimulus, for instance someone cutting us off in traffic, and our response to that stimulus, we have the freedom to choose that response. The danger that we often get into is that we believe that our response is contingent on outside forces not in our control, “the devil made me do it”, “she made me so mad that I had to…”, and so on.

It’s actually much easier to let the stimulus determine our responses because then we don’t have to take responsibility for those actions.

So all this to say what? To say that in order to engage in effective self-leadership, you must first determine that you are responsible, you are response-able.