This week Jessica Soroky begins her new series “Leadership is a Choice” with “Start Now”.

Today marks the day that I have chosen to re-commit to documenting and sharing my personal leadership journey through a new blog series called, “Leadership is a Choice”.

That may have just been an introduction sentence to someone reading this but to me it is my publicly stated intention, something I take very seriously. Here’s the thing, I know me pretty well, and I know that I wasn’t going to make that public declaration until I was really ready to commit to posting weekly again. Moreover, I have learned through studying in The Leadership Gift Program that I wasn’t going to be ready until I chose it.

I found myself sitting in the airport, one of my favorite places to write, a few months ago with my computer perched perfectly on my lap as I stared at the blinking cursor at the top of my blank word document. I switched my music playlist and sat back allowing my mind to wander as I people watched. Humans fascinate me in all settings and this almost always gets my creative juices flowing. After about 15 minutes I had an idea for a blog, or so I thought.

Pulling my laptop back up to a comfortable position I put my hands on the keyboard ready to write something powerful. My mind felt like it was moving 100 miles per hour but none of it was a cohesive thought. My fingers sat locked in position, not knowing where to move first. The staring contest with the cursor began again, but, after a few minutes, ended in my defeat.

I sat back and closed my laptop feeling that defeat. I couldn’t believe (denial) that after a year of writing each and every week I couldn’t even produce one blog now.

Mid-flight I became aware that I was in denial and then instantly became more aware that there was no point moving into blame, shame or justification. I would either choose to continue to feel this way or I would choose to take a responsible approach to this problem. I chose denial for the remainder of the flight.

I got settled at the next gate waiting on my connection when I decided I didn’t want to have anxiety about my blog. I didn’t want to force it. It was that simple, when I was ready to write again I would.

Today I am ready.

Why am I telling you all this? Well because this new blog series is going to be focused on the concept of choice, and it wasn’t until recently when I began focusing on practicing choice in all areas of my life that I wanted to write again.

To be 100% clear I write for me. I don’t mean that to be selfish – well no, actually I do. It has become a form of personal mastery for me. It forces me to really articulate what I am dealing with, what is living in my head. In some cases just writing it out allows me to let it go. In other instances writing through it helps me continue to process and even have a breakthrough. So I write for me, for my personal leadership.

I share for me too. Well this one I hope is for more than just me. It is in the sharing of these blogs that I hope to raise awareness that none of us are alone or unique in our struggles. This is a community after all, so sharing my posts is an invitation. It has been so incredible to post a blog about something I was really struggling with and to have another one of our worldwide army members reach out and tell me I wasn’t alone. It is equally amazing when I hear stories of how my posts have made others not feel alone while processing something.

In this new series, Leadership is a Choice, I will open up even more and I invite readers to join me in my continual study and mastery of leadership and more specifically the concept of choice.

If you choose to join me on this journey, or even just a part of it, I invite you to look at it as a conversation, feel free to post comments or questions.

“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan 

Jessica Soroky, CSM

Jessica is a Certified Scrum Master with over three years of practice in agile delivery and seven years of team leadership. She is also the youngest participant in The Leadership Gift™ Program and its growing worldwide community of leaders and coaches. After five years of non-profit development through Nellie’s Catwalk for Kids, Jessica continues her leadership journey in state government, not-for-profit, and private sector leadership studies.

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