A Power of Your Own

Nikki Groom

• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781641378963
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Women in Business
• Index: Business

The world has taught so many of us to mistakenly believe that we're undeserving of happiness or success, because of the simple fact of who we are.

In A Power of Your Own: How to Ignite Your Potential, Uncover Your Purpose, and Blaze Your Own Trail in Life and Business, Nikki Groom weaves an empowering and inspiring message for women entrepreneurs and anyone who has ever felt underestimated: that no matter who you are, you matter, you are enough, and you are needed on the planet.

Through nine refreshingly real and relatable chapters, this book will help you to reconnect with your inner power, live on purpose, and do more work that matters.

Featuring stories and insights from:

• Reshma Saujani, CEO of Girls Who Code
• Kelsey Ramsden, dubbed Canada's Top Female Entrepreneur
• Lisa Van Ahn, a retired kickboxer who fought for the US National Kickboxing team and won a bronze medal at the Pan American Games
• And many more...

Packed with powerful life lessons and real-world stories, A Power of Your Own is a business and self-help book like no other.

1.
BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL POWER

1.
BRILLIANCE IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT

Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?

—Charles Bukowski

Over almost ten years of coaching, strategizing with, and supporting countless women entrepreneurs to live into their highest potential, I’ve learned that acknowledging and owning your personal power—which is to say, your ability to impact the world around you—is one of the most effective ways to ignite your potential and blaze your own trail in life and business.

The best part?

This type of power doesn’t need to be gifted to you by anyone else, because you can generate it from within—which means everyone can be powerful.

Being the most powerful version of yourself is positive and life-affirming.2 It gives you energy to forge ahead and live on purpose, no matter what life throws your way.

When you own your power, you’re no longer a victim of circumstances. Instead, you turn challenges into opportunities. What other people think or say or do no longer fazes you. You stand up for your worth. You are certain about your potential. You believe in yourself and in what you can do. You take calculated risks outside your comfort zone. You demonstrate strength while admitting when you’re wrong. You celebrate your accomplishments, and you don’t take failure personally.

Power-from-within is not about dominating, controlling, or oppressing other people, which is how we traditionally think about power.3 Neither is there a limited amount to go around. Instead, power-from-within is limitless, and you get to keep your power at the same time as you elevate others.4

There are several warning signs that you might not be fully owning your power. I share the following list not to make you feel badly about yourself, but to shine light on some of the ways in which society has taught women, in particular, that we don’t deserve to have a voice and we don’t deserve to have power. If you’ve found yourself falling into any of these behaviors in the past, I want you to know that not only is it entirely understandable, but it’s also not your fault.

While this list isn’t exhaustive, my hope is that it will help you bring more awareness to the areas in your life or business where you’ve been feeling disempowered or getting in your own way.

SIX SIGNS OF DISEMPOWERMENT

1.You find it hard to say no or express what you want.

2.You don’t set healthy boundaries that teach people how to treat you.

3.You’re overdependent on the opinions of others.

4.You second guess yourself and worry about making mistakes.

5.You don’t pursue your dreams because you assume you don’t have what it takes.

6.You sabotage your success with habits that allow you to sidestep your potential.

In business, this might look like you discounting your services simply because someone asks you to, giving in to scope creep, not marketing yourself because you’re worried about what people might think, overcommitting to too many projects at once, procrastinating, focusing on busywork, thinking you have to do everything yourself, or failing to start or complete projects that would move you closer to your goals.

In life, this might look like saying yes every time someone asks you to do them a favor—even if you don’t have the bandwidth, allowing someone else to make decisions on your behalf, beating yourself up whenever you mess up, or burying your head in the sand rather than taking care of something that’s important to you because it’s easier to avoid it completely.

It can take a lot of mental determination to step out of a disempowered mindset, but it’s never too late to own your power.

In the Movement Makers Mastermind, a business growth accelerator I run each year to support women entrepreneurs to amplify their impact and their income, we meet each quarter to plan out the following twelve weeks. At the beginning of each planning session, I have everyone write down a five-year vision for their businesses that’s “unobstructed by their current reality”—meaning it shouldn’t be restricted by their current mindset, schedule, energy levels, team, skills, or resources. Afterward, I have them speak their vision into existence as if it were true today and, one by one, I get to witness each person revel in the possibilities for their lives. They shift out of fear and into faith. They begin to give themselves permission to dream a little bigger and reach a little higher.

Inevitably though, wh...