If you are willing to volunteer with an organization like the Junior League of Salt Lake City (JLSLC), you could work with both adult women and young girls as a women volunteer mentor. Your goal would be to help empower those you work with. You would be empowering adult women to be local leaders; you would be empowering young girls with the knowledge that they can be whatever they want to be.
The interesting thing about empowerment is that it is difficult to define. How it is defined by the JLSLC might differ from how another organization on the other side of Salt Lake City defines it. Both of their definitions could be drastically different from that of an organization across the country.
This raises an interesting question: what is the key to empowerment? Is it self-awareness? It is, according to mental health specialist Taylor Wilkins. Wilkins was recently interviewed for a Forbes piece written by contributors Pierson and Pete Krass.
Self-Awareness is Learning
Wilkins takes the position that in order to be truly empowered, one must engage in regular self-reflection exercises. Those exercises provide a deeper level of confidence and sense of purpose, explains Wilkins. But there is a catch. Apparently, self-reflection is of little value unless self-awareness is established first.
What is self-awareness? It is a process of being totally honest with yourself for the purposes of discovering who you really are. When practiced properly, self-awareness is a learning process. It is also a lifelong process. Wilkins maintains that each of us can always learn something new about ourselves.
As the thinking goes, a greater understanding of who we are empowers us to be who we want to be. Those things we learn about ourselves and do not like are things we are suddenly empowered to change. Those things we do like can be fostered and nurtured.
Applying What is Learned
Another key to empowerment is applying what is learned through this self-awareness process. In other words, it’s great to learn something about yourself that you never knew before. But now do something with that knowledge. If you discovered something negative, develop a plan to correct it. And if it cannot be corrected, find ways to overcome.
Likewise, take those positive things and create more positivity with them. If you discover you are an innately generous person, look for more opportunities to practice generosity. You might even develop ways to acquire more resources so that you can be more generous.
Moving to Self-Reflection
Self-awareness and application form the basis of empowerment. But to maximize their potential, one must move to the next level of self-reflection. Self-reflection serves the purpose of helping you understand how you are doing in the other two areas.
Self-reflection involves being honest about where you are at the moment. Where are you in relation to applying what you have learned about yourself? Are you being consistent to the values you established through the self-awareness process? Asking and answering these tough questions enhances empowerment by motivating you to stay on track.
Wilkins’ assertions about empowerment and self-awareness are certainly intriguing. They make a lot of sense when you step back and think about what motivates people to do what they do. Still, whether or not all of his ideas are correct remains a matter of debate. At least Wilkins offers a good starting point.
If you are looking for greater empowerment to change your life, start with the modest goal of becoming more self-aware. Learn who you really are, apply what you learn, and then turn that into empowerment through regular self-reflection exercises.
