Your standards of work, ethics, personal development and responsibility set your course in life and business. Follow the seven tips below and remember to think as big as you can, expect nothing less than the best, have courage and most importantly, be kind.

1. Collaborate with others.

At its core, success is about relationships. Involve customers and colleagues in the creation and direction of your business pursuits. With them, set standards for the work that needs to be accomplished in each person’s area of responsibility. Make these standards challenging but achievable. The result will be the high-level productivity and service you aim to perform.

You can only go so far in business alone. You need others for your own success, empowerment and completeness. In business, choose your aims and equip your team to get your business where it needs to go, rewarding the team members along the way.

2. Never neglect.

Personal power and complacency cannot co-exist in the pursuit of success. Dedicate time and energy wherever necessary to ensure that no important areas of focus, personal or professional, are neglected.

Complete tasks and assignments and work hard to overcome obstacles, focusing on what you can gain, learn and improve upon to make life and business flow more effortlessly. Make lists of things which need to be done with expectations for performance and dates of completion. Focus your efforts on what is most important for the bigger picture, not on what is urgent. Urgency creates an irrational mind. Let those elements settle while you focus on what you can control.

3. Choose possibilities, not problems.

With personal power you possess the deep belief there are available solutions for problems. When you approach challenges from a solutions-focused perspective it engages the creative process of examining and architecting alternate routes in lieu of staying stuck in false beliefs of why things cannot be done.

If you cannot find a solution, open your thoughts to others, seek their ideas and suggestions. Solution-focused minds reward and inspire each other. When solutions are the focus you learn to fail and adapt, moving away from the fixing and failing approach.

4. Self-check.

To grow in personal power use the motivational mindset of consistently monitoring, evaluating and adjusting your own work, attitude and beliefs to stay clear of complacency so you may continue meeting your higher standards.

One of the best ways to keep yourself motivated in reaching your higher standards is to write things down and define your direction. Describe what superior performance would be in light of your chosen aims, and then describe what complacent performance would be and actions steps to stay away from lower level habits.

Personal power means you set performance standards somewhere between complacency and superiority.

5. Manage your time.

The power of now. To uphold your personal power examine where you spend most of your time. Do you get the most important tasks out of the way first or do you typically get through the small, tedious things which seem more urgent? Getting caught in the small, urgent tasks pull you from the more important aims requiring your attention. Focus on what is most important and work from there.

When it comes to relationships, be on time or early to all events, business and professional, as this gives your commitments the feeling of importance. When you can make another feel significant, this is power. How you are with time says much about your commitment and character as a person and leader.

When you respect your time and that of others, you and everyone around you, will work to much higher standards.

6. Accept responsibility.

Whatever happens in your life or career the best path to the development of your personal power is to accept responsibility for the outcomes, both positive and negative, which are the result of your efforts. If you make a mistake, see it as a self-created learning experience and figure out what needs to shift for you and your efforts to be more effective. Taking responsibility allows you to be flexible and change your approach.

Power is understanding mistakes gift you with more than they take. It is from mistakes all new directions arise.

Powerful leadership is not about ego. It is about humility and a willingness to learn. Inspire in others the willingness to accept personal responsibility for the outcomes of their work. To instill this you must first demonstrate these behaviors publicly, powerfully and consistently yourself.

Elevating another person to live at a higher level of existence is the gift your personal power inspires.

7. Be kind.

There is no greater a value to offer as a human being than the simple power of kindness. Kindness does not mean you are a “yes” person or a pushover. Kindness which is success generated is the kindness that can deliver good and bad news with grace. Kindness that is geared toward higher standards is the kindness which gives feedback rather than criticism. Kindness that inspires hard work is the kindness that sees possibilities not problems.

Be kind. Be good to yourself and the people you work with and for. Create the emotional environment around you to be infectious, contagious and advantageous to all who are blessed to be a part of it. Kindness will take you further in success than any other human attribute.

To have and to lead from personal power means you embrace your inalienable right to think for yourself, to speak your mind, to pursue happiness, success and financial gain, to seek inner awareness and a sense of peace, and to do so without having to conform to anyone else’s small standards including your own. Empower yourself by being yourself. Take advantage of what it means to have opportunity, to organize your pursuits, to be kind in your leadership and to strive for that beautiful and attainable sense of personal freedom.

In your freedom lies your power.