9 Life-Changing Self-Empowerment Moves from an Unlikely Source

Exercise : Identify a major challenge or obstacle you faced: a mismatched job, a poisonous relationship, or anything else that required a concerted struggle to overcome. Reflect on how it shaped your character and resolve. How can the discipline you learned from that experience help you get the life you want?

Exercise : Spend 15 minutes daily in quiet reflection, contemplating your strengths, weaknesses, and goals.

Exercise : Choose one area of your life (work, fitness, relationships) and make a plan to build trust in yourself by maintaining your standard of excellence, whatever it takes.

Exercise : Examine your moral beliefs, paying special attention to the ones that seem so obvious to you that you barely notice them. Do they serve you, or vice versa? Are there any you’d like to reevaluate or challenge? Remember: According to a Nietzschean worldview, you can believe what you want, and it’s better to do it on purpose.

Exercise : Write down your strongest and most unusual qualities and talents. How can they best serve you in your quest for self-realization and personal growth?

Exercise : Engage in a creative activity (writing, painting, music) to express your inner desires without the usual filters. If it helps, maintain a private journal or folder where you can exercise your creativity with minimal worries of being “canceled” or otherwise judged for the power of your creative courage.

Exercise : Identify a fear or insecurity that holds you back. Take a small step today to confront it.

Exercise : Write a personal manifesto outlining your core values and intentions for authentic living.

Fortunately, the rewards are worth it, many times over. All it requires is… everything you’ve got.

To come into your full power requires accepting some heavy responsibilities, letting go of self-limiting beliefs and excuses that keep you small, and a willingness to get excited about your life again like you were as a child.

This process is not without risk. When you break social norms, no matter how gracefully or respectfully you do it, there are people around you who will resent you for breaking their tacit prohibition on doing things they choose to believe they don’t have the power to do themselves.