After spending more than a decade helping heart-centered women and global changemakers develop deeper levels of self-awareness, compassion and resilience in order to lead with more purpose and power, I began to notice some patterns to achieving meaningful transformation.
I took those patterns and broke them down into an intuitive and easy to implement three step process that you can use to move you closer to becoming your most purposeful, powerful version of self.
I call it RDP which stands for Reflect, Discern & Praxis
I designed it as an easy to implement three-step process to support you in creating and sustaining growth in all facets of your life – personal, professional, spiritual, you name it.
Going hand in hand with the larger spiral model of leadership, which is at the core of how we think about growth and transformation on this journey of Leading Whole, RDP is a process that never ends. Meaning that you’ll continue to gain from it, time and time again, each time you use it to practice being the highest version of yourself.
But let’s break each of these steps down a bit.
First off, it's no secret that we live in a world that over glorifies productivity and busyness. Because of this we are all often moving at a million miles per hour and what’s worse is that we’re often praised for it. While some say it's this hustle mentality that gets you results, we believe that at the root of any type of larger sustainable impact, we must first learn to slow down and look within.
It's from this place of introspection, rather than rapid non stop action, that you can begin to see things more clearly and to see from different vantage points.
That’s why we begin with the R for reflect.
Reflection is all about information gathering and increasing your ability to see. It’s about slowing down enough to look around at everything happening, examining it with intentionality then beginning to bring the pieces together so you can see them as a whole.
For example – say you have a puzzle and there’s tons of pieces scattered about. You normally wouldn't start the puzzle if some pieces were in the kitchen, others in the laundry room and even more under the bed. First you’d bring them all to the table so that you could see what’s there. Then, once you brought everything out, you could look at it more clearly before diving in.
That’s what we’re doing as we reflect – bringing all our life events, emotions and experiences to the forefront so we can look at them at the same time.
Then we move to D, for Discernment.
Because only after we’ve laid everything out on the table, can we begin to explore possible connections.
However, unlike a physical puzzle in which we use our eyes to find connections, when it comes to discernment, we must use our whole selves.
Discernment is all about tapping into your intuition to holistically make decisions with the support of your inner guide. This takes things one step further than reflection by exploring the new insights birthed while slowing down to examine the whole, in order to begin entertaining possible routes forward.
Discernment is vital to walking in wisdom because anyone can have knowledge– they can look at the pieces and say, “Okay, here’s information that I have before me” – but discernment is about turning that information into wisdom you act on.
Speaking of things we can act on, let's explore the next part of our process, the P which stands for Praxis.
Praxis is a word most often used in spiritual formation circles that simply means acting on one’s learning.
Therefore, after you’ve completed the first two steps of reflecting on what’s behind and before you, looking at it all from a variety of angles to distill what it has to teach you, and discovering or discerning where you feel LED, then you must choose to act on that leading, by implementing a way forward.
This is where Praxis comes in as a stage all about action, action, and more action. Or better yet let's say practice, practice and more practice, because it truly is about trying something on and learning from that too…
Praxis is about inviting yourself to be “in the work” with a sense of radical commitment, fully present to all it has for you.
After some time in Praxis you return back to the phase of…
Reflect – slowing down to collect data on all that’s happened during your most recent time of Praxis. Then you move to…
Discern – taking that information to your highest self to see it from new angles as you explore what lessons are being offered and how you’d like to respond to those teachings. And from here you bring things back to..
Praxis – moving knowledge into wisdom you’re now embodying in your life, through action.
Through this process, we believe leaders are moved from a place of surviving to thriving – where reactivity, overwhelm, division and inaction can be transformed into purpose, power, clarity, alignment and impact.
And yes, I said, leaders because you, my friend, in case you didn’t know it already, YOU are a leader!
You are the leader of your life, with a specific purpose and power that are your responsibility (and privilege) to birth.
And that’s something I’m here to help you see and nurture – to discover the truth of who you are and what you have the power to do.
It doesn’t matter what title you have or don’t have…
It doesn’t matter how charismatic or uncharismatic you are…
It doesn’t matter if you tend to be vocal and upfront or more reserved and behind
YOU ARE A LEADER.
And now more than ever, people are looking for leaders.
They’re looking for leaders like you – highly ambitious, heart centered women and world changers who elevate feminine values of authenticity, vulnerability, and collaboration.
So here’s to you, as a leader, stepping into the fullness of your unique purpose and power by adopting our three step process of RDP and putting it to use in your life today!
I've created a worksheet to accompany this blog, download it for free below!
Xo
Akwese
