Leading Through Growth: How Your Personal Struggles Shape Your Impact

Growth isn’t just personal — it’s what makes you a stronger, more impactful leader.

What if the very things you struggle with most are the key to your leadership potential?

Over the course of my 59 years, I’ve faced a number of recurring challenges that lead to conflict, confrontation, and my own internal messiness.

To name a few:

• No matter how hard I try, my mother and I still trigger each other — for our own reasons.
• I can be excessively critical of social norms and traditions, which means I get upset over expectations and assumptions about how things should or shouldn’t be.
• This often makes me confrontational instead of collaborative. I’m not afraid to speak up, but if I’m not mindful, I can come across as accusatory or inconsiderate.
• I hate being told what to do (see: social norms), which ironically led me to spend many years working with a manipulative bully.
• When I feel judged, oppressed, or like I don’t belong, I can become overly judgmental myself. And that often ties into feelings of shame and inferiority, which only makes me more defensive.

What have I learned from these challenges?

Reacting, putting up defences, and constantly trying to control outcomes is exhausting. It’s hard on my body, mentally crippling, and prevents me from fully experiencing freedom, creative expression, and equanimity. In short, if I let myself get overwhelmed by my challenges, life sucks.

Now, this might sound clichéd, but it’s my truth: I’ve learned to love, accept, appreciate, and be compassionate toward myself.

It’s taken a long time, and it’s still a work in progress. But instead of struggling with self-love, I now wrestle more with doubts about my direction. That is the kind of uncertainty that I can handle.

For about the last two years, I’ve been consciously practicing curiosity instead of contributing to contention. I’ve been trying to ask more questions instead of making…