“Your life is a message to yourself. What is it saying?” — Ram Dass
Personal power can come across as a nausea-inducing cliche. The collateral damage of the toxic positivity movement of retro self-help gurus and modern influencers. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. A concept as important and helpful as personal power, like most good things, seems fated to be used as a tool to take for the few, rather than give to the many.
Self-control and self-discipline don’t have much if any of an eye-roll factor. They may have an ick factor for the general folks. Ick factor as in, “ick I don’t want to deploy self-control/self-discipline in this situation, I’ve earned my treat.” I know I’ve been that way more times than I would care to count or remember.
“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.” — Seneca
Personal power isn’t a buzzword because it isn’t a one-and-done, miracle-cure, magic pill. Personal power is the result of the process of living life, utilizing self-control one step at a time, and deploying self-discipline one choice at a time. It is a gradual process, not an instant achievement. It is a process we are either strengthening or decaying with our actions until the day we die.
We all exercise personal power more than we think in our day-to-day lives. Regardless of background, age, sex, economic status. If we all as a society, as a species, didn’t possess a high level of personal power then we wouldn’t have societies or cultures period. So when talking about personal power, self-control, and/or self-discipline the first thing to do is often the most overlooked which is to give ourselves some credit.
But we know internally, silently, when we’re alone, when we look at ourselves in the mirror that we can do more and be better. Not in some pie-in-the-sky way, but measured against our past actions and against our future goals. I know I can’t be the only one who has felt and feels that way. It’s not that I’m trying to be Superman or what influencers pretend to be on social media. It’s when I do the right things, give the right effort, and consistently take the right action but then fall off and seemingly forget how to do it and that I did it.
“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” — Alan Watts
So what do we do? How do we get better? We know we have to do, try, take action, and put forth effort but we as humans need to be taught everything. We would be crawling on all fours, urinating, and defecating ourselves if we weren’t taught to walk and potty trained. So something like growing one’s power through self-discipline and control needs to be taught and unfortunately, schools would rather teach us algebra and dodgeball. So it’s up to us to teach ourselves. Luckily there are philosophical ideas, spiritual concepts, and humanistic approaches that can provide us with simple, pragmatic steps for growth. Simple, not easy…as is life.
Personal power is often thought of and referred to as an external thing but it is completely created from the inside out from doing internal work. We can’t control if we influence other people or situations. But we can control what we do to cultivate our inner strength, our inner peace, the strength of our character, our self-control, and our self-discipline. This is the Stoic Dichotomy of Control. Our pursuit of self-mastery is always within our control. Stoicism has been an immense help to me in introducing me to the concepts of what is within and what is outside of our control.
“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus
Pursuing external personal power may have an eye-roll factor, but pursuing internal self-mastery is as universally noble of a purpose and life’s work as there is, since there is nothing harder or more complex for the average person like myself to seek. Philosophy can help create awareness and identify what we need to focus on. Journaling was probably the first productive habit I cultivated as an adult and is a Stoic exercise that helps us to reflect and look ahead through the lens of timeless principles.
Spirituality-based practices like meditation and yoga can guide us along the way by also giving us things to do to cultivate self-control and self-discipline on the path. Mindfulness meditation has been a lifesaver for me over the past decade and a half. Self-improvement can turn to self-punishment early and often. Day-to-day living can be a challenge. Meditation has helped me cultivate greater awareness and compassion for myself in the face of internal and external challenges.
Habitualizing a consistent yoga practice has taken a tremendous amount of self-control and self-discipline over many years for me. I find regular yoga practice helps my body feel the way regular meditation practice helps my mind and heart feel. Feeling good through consistent, active action rather than passive escapism is a path to self-mastery and personal power.
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.” — Gautama Buddha
Ultimately cultivating our personal power starts with the humanistic belief in our inherent goodness and potential. Stoic journaling and resilience combined with Buddhist mindfulness as well as the Taoist principle of getting into and being in harmony with nature is a combination that works for me. I find these concepts and practices help level out the disjointed nature of modern living for me. This allows me to find stillness and space within myself to harvest beneficial habits of thought, perception, and emotion internally which produces the right action externally.
The journey is different for everyone. We all have to walk our path. But some timeless principles and paradigms will outlive us all that can make life a little less complex, a little easier, and help us harvest our personal power a little more. Doing so can make our individual lives and the world we live in a better place.
“Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” — Lao Tzu
Anarchy Journal Constitutional 