Are you still on track to living YOUR life's purpose?
More than ever I noticed the increase in clients coming to me confused. Confused about where they have ended up versus where they want to be at this point in their journey. Confused also about what they are meant to do, supposed to be and where they want to go. Some simply describe it as brain fog and some even question if they are heading towards depression.
I believe the turmoil in the outside world with the backdrop of world politics and economics certainly is not helping and is a big driver for many to question their own integrity, impact and path. Also, people generally like to review and/or adjust their plans in the middle of the year to take stock about where they are heading.
My dear friend Leo Hawkins described this state lovingly as the human hurricane in his book: the thief who wants to be a police man. The question is: How do we get away from this brain fog created by being part of the hurricane in our life and pull ourselves from there into the eye of the storm?
The importance of bringing ourselves into the eye of that hurricane is that we are then able to see what's spinning around us rather than being part of the thick of the storm. It is the first step to understand what it is that we are dealing with. Now we are in a conundrum! Even though we are sitting in the calm of the storm, we are still confused. Confused by the sheer volume of choice about what is flying around us, waiting to be dealt with! That thought in itself can evoke quite a stressful reaction in the body.
So here is a question for you: How do you actually know what you truly value in this very moment of sitting in the eye of the storm? Is it a gut instinct or a reaction, that makes you decide what you pick to deal with and bring into the eye of the storm? Often in these extreme situations our survival brain kicks in and the choices we make are protective choices that may not necessarily be the most effective choices for moving your life towards where you want to be. These instinctive choices may keep you safe, but they don't move you on.
To combat this we can take step two. Once we see what is flying around us, is to check if any of these items are actually of value to us. Value in terms of getting us the biggest benefit around where we want to be or head towards in life. The term life here includes every aspect of ourselves: work and personal and everything else you might consider part of your life's components.
There is however a very useful process of establishing your core values that I work through with my clients. This process is both instinctive and reflective. It is enlightening and challenging. It also goes deep because it requires you to make choices for yourself about how to think, behave and what decisions to make. The process consists of four parts in total. The end result is an in depth knowledge of your 8 values and 4 core values which reveals where your likes, dislikes, boundaries and preferences at this point in life lie.
Let's have a look at part one: What actually are your values? By values I mean things you don't want your life to be without. Go ahead now and name eight words that declare your values. You can get really creative with this if you want a bit of fun. For example: imagine you are baking a cake with eight different flavours. For that you simply draw a circle (your cake) and divide it into eight pieces. Then you put the name of each value on the top of each slice of your cake (the circle you drew). Or alternatively you could simply draw or cut out images and/or words from a magazine and stick them on a piece of paper or board.
So there you have it! That's the first part for you and what do you do with that now? You know which values you want to bake but you have no idea yet how and what ingredients you need to actually bake this delicious, mouthwatering and unique cake.
Part two involves figuring out the ingredients for each of your pieces. In other words you look at the words one at the time and think what makes them become alive. Let's say you have chosen "Respect" as one of your words. Now you define what this means to you - so what are your ingredients. This could be the tone of your voice, or not interrupting when someone is speaking. It could be looking at someone, when they speak rather than looking at the phone or carrying on the task you have been doing. Or making space for an older person to sit down in your seat on a train and so on. You get the idea. Remember, it is about the fulfillment in an ideal world and not a gratitude exercise!
Essentially, it is what in an ideal world you want to think, see, hear, do on a daily basis that makes up this word/value. Including the frequency and amount. So for example: how many times do you want your partner to cook for you in the week that you know s/he values you or loves you? Does it include washing up etc.... Yes, it is vital you go to that detail as only then will you learn all about your expectations and boundaries in the process.
Doing it as thoroughly helps with the third part of the process the elicitation of your four core values. Clients have said to me after the second part, now I know what really matters to me and are assuming they know their core values at this point. Once we then work through the third part, the elicitation together the clients are often surprised by the outcome. A lot of light bulb moments go on at this stage because all of a sudden it becomes clear where things got stuck.
In the fourth part you reflect on decisions you have made, conflicts you may have at work or in your private life and you check where there might have been a clash in values that have caused issues. Coming back to our place in the eye of the storm it is now easy to choose and pick items to deal with first that are aligned with your values in life.
With this knowledge you are able to choose with purpose what you bring into the eye of the storm. You become aware what your priorities on a daily bases are. It'll help you make decisions in line with who you want to show up as in life and you will also notice in conflict situations that not everyones values mean the same. You'll find out that things aren't always black and white. There are also grey zones. Peopel are individual and interpret/understand words equally as individual. What I am saying is many people have respect high their valueslist but every single one of these people will have a different interpretation and expextation about what this means in daily life. Our values aren't static. They change throughout our lives. Therefore it is vital to pay a visit to values at least every three to five years.
How cool is that? Well, from experience I can say that this process certainly has helped many of my clients to become clear about who they want to show up as and what they want to do next to get there. As a result of their own clarity they have become more confident, happier, better leaders, parents and partners.
I am very curious to hear your thoughts on this article and I look forward to hearing from you.