Developing Personal Agency in Two Strokes
This week Filipe Toledo took out the title at the 2021 Margaret River Pro, and dedicated the victory to his son, Koa on his birthday.
What’s interesting is he’d made a promise to Koa the night before to bring home the title, so he didn’t want to break his promise.
A big call and a very big promise to make.
But what it definitely did for Toledo was give him laser-like focus on his goal……… the important part is that it wasn’t for him, it was for someone else.
I see this in teams all the time.
When individuals focus on achieving goals that are part of a bigger picture and not only about them, their energy shifts.
The focus of their attention and energy goes out allowing them to focus more effectively on the tasks that need to be completed in order to achieve their goals.
This is the power of working individually whilst being part of a team.
When individual and collective energy aligns working through a series of goals towards a bigger picture becomes easier.
As a leader encouraging individuals to create small and meaningful goals in pursuit of the bigger picture, isn’t simply about delegation and workload allocation.
It’s about building personal agency.
As soon as any individual understands how they are an integral part of a bigger picture and believes in their own capabilities, knowing that someone has their full support, they’ll be able to achieve things they might not have been able to achieve in isolation.
And this can happen at the most unexpected times and in the strangest of circumstances.
Last weekend I was out surfing, in slightly bigger conditions than I am used to.
I got talking with a guy about my discomfort in the bigger waves. I asked him how he approached them. His response was gold.
“There’s no difference between a bigger wave or a smaller wave.” he said.
“It’s simply a mindset approach in choosing to commit to the wave and taking two extra strokes to get fully on it. Try it on the next wave. We’re all out here together. You’ll be fine.”
The simple statement “Two more strokes” is all it took to shift my personal agency towards surfing forever.
What are the “two more strokes” can you take to build your personal agency?
How can you support your team to find their “two more strokes” and build their personal agency?