Battlefield Of The Mind Analysis

The Week Three course materials of Foundations in Leadership have been influential in focusing on my personal state of mental health. The mind has the ability to keep us bound by worry and fear, and it has the ability to set us free to thrive and excel. Our mind not only affects us personally, it affects every person in our sphere of influence. Bill Hybels suggests in Courageous Leadership, that when we function as unhealthy leaders we inflict pain to those who are closest to us (194). The greatest take-away from this week has been to ask myself: how is my mind affecting my leadership; how do I keep myself replenished; and how do I avoid pitfalls of depression? In Courageous Leadership, Hybels asks a poignant question which disturbs, yet intrigues me; “Who is your toughest leadership challenge? You” (182). His answer is direct and convicting. It begs the question, “What am I personally doing to hold myself back from what God wants to accomplish through me?” TD Jakes says, “The most powerful tool you have is your mind.” (Jakes). If the most powerful tool I have is my mind, then it must be the key to overcoming my toughest leadership challenge; me. In Joyce Meyer’s book Battlefield of the Mind she quotes, “Through careful …show more content…
Parker Palmer says that he believes burnout is a result of trying to give what we do not have within us (49). He also suggests that we harm ourselves and others when we do this (50). This is definitely something I have experienced in my life and something I do not wish to return to. Hybels shares a profound statement during his own self-realized season of burnout; “The pace at which I’ve been doing the work of God is destroying God’s work in me” (193). I believe this is a something every leader, including myself, needs to evaluate. Wayne Cordeiro says that “merely identifying something is not the same as getting it addressed and resolved”