Topic outline

  • Overview

    Self-leadership is a hands-on self-development and well-being summer course that creates a framework for personal growth by providing a toolkit for structuring time, working on your well-being, and how to work smarter, not harder.

    It is natural to question whether the typical person possesses the emotional endurance required to navigate a life filled with constant turmoil. Change can be an arduous process, and the frenzied nature of present-day society has resulted in a widespread epidemic of stress and anxiety. With the mounting unpredictability of the job market and individual career trajectories, global political crisis, economic crisis, and finally, the rise of AI, it begs the question: will individuals have the capacity to manage such challenges? The question on many people's minds is whether they can attain a sense of inner calm in a world that seems to be constantly shifting. Sadly, for numerous individuals in the modern era, feeling anxious and overwhelmed has become the norm. To attain peace and achieve success in this chaotic world, it is imperative to develop a resilient inner core that will allow you to navigate life with clarity and comfort. The self-leadership course will help you to accumulate a certain buffer of psychological capital, like insurance against small setbacks so that these will not make you give up or turn away from your personal goals and direction.

    To get a feeling of the mindset behind the course you can listen to this podcast:

    We explore that there are so many books, podcasts, videos, courses, and apps in the self-help areas. However, people are still looking for more and more. Why?

    https://soundcloud.com/user-705936595/cloud-reachers-s06e02-with-lidia-rauramo

    The course is highly practical. Students get to discuss the topics and get assignments connected to them. The core of the course is to equip every student with a practical toolkit of self-development exercises that they will be able to execute on their own long after the course. The course offers a library of tools instead of one general concept. During the course, every student will find something that fits their circumstances and needs perfectly.

    Main topics of the course:

    • Self-awareness and connection to self;
    • Long-term orientation and visioning;
    • Presence: practicing living in the moment;
    • Time-management;
    • Mindset flexibility;
    • Empathy and compassion (including self-compassion);
    • Resilience.

    The course is built in accordance with the Inner Development Goals framework (https://www.innerdevelopmentgoals.org/framework ) and has a human sustainability model in its core (self, emotions, and body).

    The Self-Leadership summer course by Aalto University Summer School derives from the Good Life Engine course at Aalto University (https://avp.aalto.fi/avp-course/good-life-engine/ ) and is one of the flagship courses of the Aalto Ventures Program. The Good Life Engine was created in response to the needs of Aalto University students regarding well-being and self-mastery.

    Learning outcomes

    During this Self-Leadership course, students:

    ·       will understand how to gain a study/work-life balance without sacrificing progress toward their strategic goals. Students will learn how to live, not to run a marathon;

    ·       will learn about themselves and their motivating factor;

    ·       will define their strategic life goals, plan the journey toward them, and plan how to best manage time to progress on this journey;

    ·       will study how to create new healthy habits, do the twists in their life to tackle anxiety and procrastination, learn how to stay resilient, and be empathic leaders.


    The course is assessed as pass-fail. To pass the course, students need to complete the following assignments:

    ●     E.g. Final assignment “A work/life project”

    ●     Learning diary

    ●     In-class activity (participating in group discussions)


    Course structure

    Lecture weeks (24/7-4/8/2023)

    ·       Daily lectures and workshops on campus at 9-12

    ·       Teamwork and individual assignments to be completed in the afternoon or evenings

    Post-assignment, online (4/8-11/8/2023)

    ·       Individual reflection assignments on key takeaways

    Teacher: Lidia Rauramo, Linkd'In