Silence

Be still and know that I am God…

A key to being a good leader is being non-anxious in anxious situations. (For more on this, check out Rodger’s series on Anxiety and Leadership.) One practice that has helped me grow in this capacity is silence.

By nature I am not a silent person. I’m active, busy, always forward moving. I have trouble sitting still and trouble resting. In order to have a day of rest, I have to make it a goal to check off at the end of the day, and even then it’s hard (but the fact that it’s a goal keeps me on track – goal-oriented person that I am). On top of that, our culture doesn’t encourage silence—quite the opposite, in fact. We are spoken at and marketed to every waking minute. Many of us expect engagement and entertainment every minute of the day, even falling asleep at night to the sound of the TV.