What’s in Your Cup? A Leadership Reflection for When Life Shakes You

Imagine you’re holding a cup of coffee. Someone bumps your arm, and the coffee spills everywhere.

Most of us would instinctively blame the bump, the unexpected jolt, the external force.

But the truth is simple:

You didn’t spill coffee because someone bumped you.

You spilled coffee because coffee was in your cup.

If it had been tea, you’d have spilled tea.

If it had been water, you’d have spilled water.

What’s inside us is what spills out, especially when life shakes us.

And it will.

Pressure, disruption, fatigue, conflict, uncertainty… none of us are immune. Nurses and leaders know this more intimately than most. It’s easy to hold yourself together when conditions are calm. It’s when you’re stretched, rattled or pushed to your emotional edge that your true contents rise to the surface.

So the real question becomes:

What’s in your cup?

When the pace picks up, when the shift goes sideways, when you’re juggling responsibility at home and at work… what spills out of you?

• Joy? Gratitude? Calm? Compassion?

• Or frustration, defensiveness, harsh reactions, or unfiltered stress?

This isn’t about perfection.

It’s about self-leadership , the daily discipline of choosing what you fill yourself with. Because life will continue to hand you the cup; you are responsible for what’s inside it.

Today is an opportunity to be intentional.

To choose gratitude over comparison.

Forgiveness over resentment.

Affirmation over criticism, of yourself and others.

Kindness, gentleness and love as default settings rather than occasional behaviours.

This isn’t soft leadership.

It’s strong leadership.

It’s the inner work that sustains you long after motivation fades and pressure rises.

Fill your cup with what you want your leadership to spill out into the world.

Because what’s inside you shapes how you lead, how you live, and how you rise. -