How To Improve Your Own Personal Power In 8 Simple Steps

Our personal power is the key to our well-being and personal effectiveness.

Personal power is the empowerment of the true self that exists in all of us. It provides us with strength, courage, and compassion throughout all life’s ups and downs. By learning how to improve personal power, we facilitate this life long pursuit of empowerment that encompasses every area of our life.

As you learn how to improve your personal power, it is important to differentiate between true power and ego inflation.

If I did a good job and it makes my ego feel good, I might feel powerful. If I am praised and if it makes my ego feel good, I might feel powerful.

While these things might help us feel powerful, real personal power comes from internal, not external, motivations. True personal power makes our ego’s grasp at power look like what they are — feeble.

Below are 8 steps you can take to improve your personal power. The kind you really want — the real kind:

1. Learn what is in your heart. 

We are bold in our actions when we are connected with the trough of our heart. The word courage — a form of personal power — is from the Latin word "cor", which means heart. When we are aware of the contents of our heart and we know its truth, we are more powerful than we previously might have imagined.

Think of the powerful rebellion of Gandhi. When we use our heart as our guide, we become clearer and more resolute. Our confidence is no longer the confidence of superiority but the confidence of devotion.

2. Love and accept who you are at your core.

You are completely perfect and infinitely flawed. Learning to truly love and accept yourself while still holding yourself accountable for your actions is a powerful skill that helps you maintain perspective, even as you are being tested and stretched by life’s circumstances.

When you find a part of yourself that you are having a difficult time accepting, try asking yourself how this part of you is productive or helpful. Learn to see that there is always a flip side and that, often, negativity or positivity is just a matter of use of that part of yourself, rather than an inherent goodness or badness.

3. Recognize that you have the power to change.

A lot of people believe that they have the power to change over the course of their lives, but don’t give themselves the power to change in the moment. You do not need to hold onto something that does not serve you any longer than you want to.

Let yourself have a choice in each moment as much as you possibly can. When we truly recognize our choice in each moment, that is when we truly feel our personal power. 

4. Take action.

When we take actions to create positive outcomes in our lives, we feel more powerful. When you see an opportunity to move things forward, seize the moment. This can be as simple as picking up some trash off the ground or saying something kind to a stranger.

It is also important to take action, to put boundaries in place for yourself, and to give clear feedback to others when things are not going well.

5. You are instrumental in shaping events.

Your love, kindness, care, and compassion can sculpt any moment. You have the ability to shift the tide when you see things moving in an unpleasant direction or add more to things moving in a positive direction.

Begin to recognize your contributions to the unfolding of all the events that you experience and you will unlock a giant piece of your personal power.

6. Work with the pain.

As much as we want life to be pain-free, it is not. The teaching is in the pain. This does not mean you should become obsessed with focusing on the pain of life, but pain serves as a cue that we are going in the wrong direction or that we are not quite on track.

Next time you are feeling this challenge, let it remind you to refocus on what it is that you are trying to create.

7. Be comfortable with discomfort.

Another teaching that helps us step into our personal power is discomfort. Trying to push away all the hard and uncomfortable things in life does not work.

When things are hard, it is sometimes necessary to be willing to just let it be hard. Have your anger. Have your sadness. And then, move on.

Difficult emotions will pass on their own if we do not hold onto them.

8. Celebrate.

Celebrate yourself. Celebrate others. Celebrate your life. Gratitude for all that we have is critical to feeling empowered.

When we look at our life or ourselves and see that our efforts have yielded more love, more happiness, more abundance, and we take the time to acknowledge these successes, we naturally feel more powerful and more right in our own skin.

Find ways to acknowledge you for all of your efforts and gain even more personal power.

Dr. Kate Siner is an educator, facilitator, and author, with a PhD in Psychology. Her new Healing Intensive incorporates the power of community, the intimacy of personalized care, and the efficacy of tried and tested techniques. Join this intimate group healing experience and benefit from the support of the community and the intimacy of a personalized healing process crafted to give you just what you need. Learn more here.