With Valentine’s Day coming soon, relationship and personality frameworks are a great opportunity to learn more about all of your loved ones.
I have always been fascinated by frameworks that explain why we are similar and different to others. Both Meyers Briggs and Enneagram are frameworks—a way to communicate a lot of information in a simpler package. A framework is as good as it resonates key concepts well. Any framework emphasizes some things and ignores others. Comparing the two assessments, the Meyer’s Briggs is more about your innate tendencies whereas Enneagram tends to come from your upbringing—early childhood experiences that caused wounds.
The Meyer’s Briggs assessment is be the most commonly used. The framework focuses on four cognitive aspects of a person—energy, information, decisions, and organization.
Yet I found that I like the Enneagram even more for understanding how we related to one another. I believe that the Enneagram can be a tool for building empathy toward others.
Reading about the nine types helped me to understand why friends and family make the choices they do, and how they see the world differently than me. Embracing this multiplicity of perspectives helps to embrace that our ways of seeing differ and the meaning we gain from experiences varies greatly.
These types of frameworks can help in all types of relationships. In business settings, they can help to dissolve conflict between team members and also help to maximize the strengths of others. In friendships, they can help to heal wounds due to ignorance or different ways of seeing. In parenting, they can help us to build up our kids and to help them navigate through their blind spots.
In romantic relationships, often one pairs with someone with a different set of strengths An entire industry of products and memes exist showing the ways that love can be expressed by enneagram type.
I’m an ENFJ—extroverted, intuitive/big picture, feeling, judging. With the enneagram, I find myself fitting with types 1 and 8–the reformer and the leader. y partner is an Enneagram 9, ISTJ. His patience and peacemaking calm my energy. His attention to details helps me to turn my big ideas into actions that can actually make a difference. I stretch him into more experiences than he might choose alone. 32 years and counting, we complete each other.
Choosing a coach to help you along this journey might be the best gift to give yourself in this new year. It seems that there are all kinds of people hanging out a shingle, calling themselves a coach. I encourage you to interview a few coaches before settling on the one that is a best fit for you. I offer some guideposts for discerning quality of training, depth of experience, and fit with your needs.
COACH QUALITY
Ask any prospective coach about the training they have received. What degrees do they hold? What expertise do they possess? The International Coaching Federation is the professional association for coaches. The federation includes a list of coaching programs that it has verified as high quality training. If your potential coach does not have training from one of these high-quality programs, ask why and consider whether the training that they received instead is sufficient. High quality training has received rigorous external review process. These programs have demonstrated that the curriculum aligns with the ICF “definition of coaching, Core Competencies and Code of Ethics.” Training should include enough hours of learning to be a deep and substantial program. The program also should include a certain number of clinical hours that allow for sufficient practice and feedback as a coach.
COACH EXPERIENCE
Ask prospective coaches about the scope of their experience, including certifications received.Coaches differ in education and backgrounds, plus varying coaching certifications. The ICF offers levels of certification–Associate Certified Coach, Professional Certified Coach, and Master Certified Coach. Each level of certification requires a set number of clinical hours coached, plus a required number of professional development hours of additional training. Certified coaches must also engage in many hours of supervision–sharing coaching sessions with a higher ranked coach to receive feedback and paths for improving one’s practice. Again, if your prospective coach is not certified by the ICF or otherwise, find out why.
COACH CHEMISTRY
Assess the vision of your coach with your needs. What is the emphasis of the work that your potential coach provides? What is her expertise? Does her background resonate with your professional career? Your spiritual faith? Perhaps you want someone with similar identities to you; perhaps you want someone with a very different outlook. Have a meaningful conversation with your prospective coach on what they value in a coaching relationship and what their ideal client looks like. Feel the chemistry and see if it will inspire you to stretch into your best version of yourself.
If there was every a time for making a vision board, I would suggest that now is it. You have the time. You have the desire for next year to be better than this one. Time to lean in the magic of manifesting what can be.
I’ve run Vision Board workshops all across the country. Each opportunity is a gift of seeing clients light up with possibility. I invite you to engage in this exercise yourself. Perhaps you do it with your family. Or on zoom with good friends. Light a candle. Make a favorite beverage, and drive in to possibility!
I’ll share here the nuggets of what I’ve learned about a successful vision board experience. I draw on two contradictory sources of information–Martha Beck and Jack Canfield. The distinction is how you use the tool. One view is you lean intuitively into putting images on there when you don’t even know what they are, and then keep it in the background–something to explore occasionally to see what is coming up. The second view is to very intentionally and specifically articulate your goals, and then keep that vision front and center in your life so you see it every day. Which path feels right to you? That’s the one to choose!
PART ONE: CREATIVE YOUR VISION BOARD
Create a vision board that represents who you are. Choose words, visions in your head. Write them or sketch them yourself. Or search for them online. Aim for deep resonance. Less is more.
Be as specific as possible. Watch out for what you put on a vision board because you just might get it. The more specific you are, the more you can focus on that vision. The more vague you are, you leave up to the universe to interpret your dreams. And the version of that dream might not actually be what you are hoping for. For example, you could wish for “adventure” and end up having instability in your life that is definitely an adventure but a pathway of adversity rather than excitement.
OR
Use your intuition to find images. Turn magazines upside down and just notice what colors, photos and words you are drawn to find. Or squint your eyes to filter out some of your conscious mind. Keep the brain out of it. Don’t question what you find. Just put it out there and be curious how it makes sense months from now. Focus on your breath and how your body is resonating what what is coming up for you. Martha Beck says: “Knowing what that thing is will not help you as much as picking it without thought.” Don’t question what you know from an intuitive place. Put down all the messages–the more nonsensical the better
Building Vision Boards at Pendle Hill Conference Center, February 2020
PART TWO: USING YOUR VISION BOARD
FOCUS ON IT:Jack Kanfield says to keep that vision board front and center. Put it by your bedside, or where you brush your teeth. Check in with it daily. Visualize your dreams before you fall asleep each night. Affirm the words and the images. Picture your dreams as if they are already present.
OR DON’T FOCUS ON IT. Martha Beck says, don’t push too hard. Let the magic happen behind the scenes. Stop thinking about what you want out of life. Instead of “results-oriented energy” trust that the process is in motion. Keep that vision board in the background. But remain active with your goals. Take steps toward the dreams but also trust that the magic of the universe is also helping you along. Think if it as a set of images that brings you joy rather than dwelling on the outcomes.
Clients often ask me how to know when it is the inner critic and when it is your own inner truth. This struggle can be especially problematic with academics, whom are trained to over use their brains. An inner critic voice often has some of these properties: mean, harsh, stuck in binaries, judging and demeaning, repetitive, persistent, draws on previous failures, sounds like critical people from your past, creates feelings of anxiety and worry, and/or sounds like perfectionism.
We can know our inner critic is spinning when we can’t stop the thought in our minds. The struggle is to stop the replay “tapes in our heads”—to review difficult moments in our lives over and over, as if doing so will change the outcome, or allow us to say the “right” thing this time.Known as rumination, we can obsess over these struggles and stay stuck in the past. We can never change what happened. Rumination just keeps us feeling miserable. Ongoing rumination raises anxiety, which interferes with problem solution.
Sometimes the warning of inner critics were important for former times of our life but are no longer valid. Perhaps we lived in times of physical or emotional danger. We carry with us alarm bells into newer, safer situations. Thank these alarm bells when you notice them. Acknowledge their purpose in your life and also intentionally notice the skills and the supports that you now have that no longer make them needed.
The most central query when unsure is to ask if that voice and that message is lifting you up and giving you energy, or tearing you down. Our inner nature is never to destroy ourselves. An inner critic voice tends to feel harsh, mean, negative, binary, and focuses on “not enough,”
Another tactic is to tap into our bodies, which possess innate ways of knowing.Tapping into knowledge below our chins can be a great way of discerning what is our deeper truth. The truth within ourselves is much bigger than our minds. In fact, our bodies give us great insights all of the time that we tend to take for granted. Consider how different parts of our bodies help us to know truth. Our hands may be shaking during an important conversation.
We know something is true from a “gut feeling.” Our throat constricts when we feel silenced. These sensations are driven by the stimulation of the vagus nerve. The largest organ in the autonomic nervous system. that communicates with the threat, lungs, heart, stomach, liver, pancreas, and gut. Called the “soul nerve” , the vagus nerve informs our consciousness the ways we are just beginning to understand. It also is part of the process that tells the body when to fight, flight or freeze. Much of these signals are out of conscious awareness. Yet, with practice, attending to our gut feelings can help us to discern messages our body are sending to us, as well as to intentionally calm messages to reduce stress response.
We can step away from rumination by reconnecting below the neck–through drawing our attention back to our bodies and the emotional reactions within them. Tara Brach refers to the process as RAIN—Recognizing the emotion, Allow its Presence. Investigate with curiosity, Nurture with Compassion. The process acknowledges the feeling but meets it with compassion rather than rejection. If we catch ourselves repeating a thought or problem without resolution, our first step is to notice it. It does not help to berate ourselves for that as well. Instead, we can just notice, “There it is again.”
Our next step is to exit the “negative memory network” in which negativity feeds upon itself and grows. Rumination tends to be triggered by mood. We can recall positive times when we faced similar struggles and ask our support network to help us to remember times when we succeeded. To pull ourselves away from our tapes, it helps to take in the present moment.
Mel Robbinshttps://melrobbins.com/five-elements-5-second-rule/ suggests a similar pattern of disruption by counting backwards from 5. It has to be backwards, she says, and by 1, we are in the present moment and the tape is cut off. We are conscious and able to make our own choices of what we choose to think in that moment. We can then choose a positive image or concept to replace the negative one.
At times, find ourselves having to get work done that has been put on a long delay. Yet we will always face times of feeling stuck, feeling .procrastination, malease.
While we might need to shrink our expectations of what work looks like in our new reality, we find ourselves needing to make progress. Due to external deadlines and also to feel a sense of purpose. Here are a few strategies for improving productivity, feeling a personal sense of accomplishment, no matter your set up.
Begin with your heaviest weight.
The best way to complete meaningful work each day is to begin with the tough stuff. Do the task that is your greatest stressor first. The one that matters the most–the one that is weighing on you. The tasks that leaves a pit in your stomach because you ignore it.
Pay yourself first in your day and do the hardest work when you are freshest. Do not check the easy items off of your “to-do” list. When you have your carved out precious writing time, do the hard stuff. Tackling that project will ease the anxiety, make you feel like you are in control of your destiny. You can make steady progress on your goals, visiting with your real work. Every day.
Conditions to set the mood. Notice the conditions that make your most important work easiest to do. What conditions help you to work well? For example, music can help us to connect with a particular mood or mindset . Consider using the same playlist when working on a project over a few months It might be with particular music that helps you to focus. Or consider the same white noise if you do not like music.
I tend to listen to Pink Floyd when I can’t seem to be productive. I don’t even usually listen to Pink Floyd. But it gets my writing processes flowing and I am able to do the tough thinking stuff.
Also notice your blocks and barriers to successful work time. Notice when you make unnecessary rules that block meaningful work opportunities. You can write even if your inbox is full. Even if your kitchen is dirty. Even if your phone is ringing. Notice what habits or conditions pull you out of focus. Turn off the internet on your computer. Leave your cell phone in another room. Set a timer to reward yourself for staying focused longer.
Perhaps you find yourself in a funk. Change it up. Take responsibility. Write anyway but with a new habit. Save habits that you enjoy for rewards when completing a project. Savor the victory.
Taking on some challenges to alter your usual rhythms can provide experiments in how to improve writing quality and to shrink the amount of time necessary to complete your work. Some experiments to try:
Shrink your “meaningful work” windows. Finding time also includes changing mental models of how much time is needed for quality work, and especially writing. Research indicates that daily attention to the tough work you need to get done is much more effective than blocking out a giant chunk of time once a week. Challenge yourself to see how small of a time window can be used for meaningful work. Even a half an hour is enough to write one paragraph. Push yourself to break your own record in efficiency in small time periods. See if this strategy can work for you.
Ride the energy flow.Dive in deep for short spurts of time when you are feeling especially productive. When you find yourself in a period of time when your energy is particularly high and the work is flowing, honor this energy shift and write as much as you can. Ride the inspiration wave. Cancel other plans when possible. Ask for support from loved ones. Such a wave of energy will not last forever, so treasure it and slide into the flow of writing.
Create a “meaningful work” cocoon. Shut your office door when you are working. Place a post-it not one it to not be disturbed.
Create accountability structures. Rely on friends to ask you about your deadlines. Work in the company of others–online if need be. Ask colleagues to ask you about your progress. Set deadlines for others to read about your work. Hire a writing/life coach to help you to prioritize your goals and to stick to them.
End each “meaningful work” session with a note to yourself of how to jump in and get started substantively. Give yourself a question to answer for the next day. Note in your work where to begin the next time and give yourself a clear task as a starting off point.
Whether it be mastering your schedule, creating boundaries, or trying on new ways of writing, the goal is become a student of your habits. Notice what is working, what problems you create for yourself, and be brave to try on new habits.
The arrival of fall shook me awake. Fall is usually a time of switching gears. It is a return to work habits and productivity after the slower habits of summertime. The weather cools. The air shifts.
This shift in seasons brings with it a time of resetting our intentions. Yet, the pandemic continues.
I realized that I had been holding my breath all summer. I was still treating the pandemic as a short term crisis.\
By shutting off the fearful feelings, I was shutting off the positive energy too. I was numbing myself to all of the feelings associated with such a deep change. I stopped most of my regular, including blogging, meditation, attending Quaker worship, and pouring energy into my coaching practice.
I find that I am finally moving from resistance to surrender. I am ready to ask the universe, what does this crisis teach me? What can it teach all of us?
We are in the deep, dark middle part of coping with the pandemic. Brene’ Brown talks about this part of our collective journey as Day Two. The challenge is here, and the resolution is not in sight.
We are wrestling with our souls and being forced to change our ways of being. We are grieving and struggling. Old patterns no longer fit our new reality.
We find ourselves in an expectant waiting. In this collective searching, we can move from resistance to surrender. We can ask, “What am I here to learn and how can I serve in this moment?”
Gifts are present in the darkness. The burning down of the old debris will allow new ways of being to grow. We can admit that we have no idea what’s coming. It’s not what we expected it would be.
When things are falling apart, we have a greater space to try on new ways of being. We shed old ways of knowing. Ways of being that no longer fit. Step away from relationships that drain us. In times of great change, the gift is that we have no extra energy to pull inauthentic burdens along.
Ways of showing up in the world that at once felt too risky become necessary. We need to be brave enough to turn to a new path. To accept what we cannot change but also to open ourselves up to expansion of who we can become.
Grace is greater. The pathway forward is willingness to commit to creative solutions.
Through commitment to such brave work, we can discern matters to us. We must make up things as we go. Find playfulness and acceptance as we learn. We can find kindness towards ourselves and to others as we try on new shapes and roles.
I challenge you to dive into the possibility of who you are meant to be in this moment. To take on what you have been avoiding. Knowing that “normal” is gone, what a beautiful moment to try on a new way of being.
Whether you know deep down in your soul what you are yearning for. Or you are stuck and ready to gain the tools to find that inspiration. Use the gift of this change in seasons to bravely step into your best version of yourself.
Ready to find your new normal? Let’s talk! Reach out to me at dana@danamitra.net.
I sense out there a transition—from the clutching of crisis to an unsettled awareness that fear and isolation are far from over. Temporary changes in routine are becoming new ways of doing things for the long-term. Loss feels greater perhaps as the thought of a curtailed summer becomes more and more real.
I found myself feeling claustrophobic in the same spaces that felt just fine a week ago. I realized today that I was withholding a part of what keeps me “zen” but not having a corner for my own thinking and “being.”
I had given up my meditation/journaling corner to make space for my husband to have an office, now that he works from home. I thought it was fine to squeeze in some time when he was elsewhere or just to take my journal in any other part of the house.
I realized that I had been holding out for “temporary” when these changes are here for a long time. Yesterday, I sought a new space to call my own. I carved out a corner of our bedroom by moving a few pieces of furniture around
Immediately I felt a sense of peace. I brought all of my treasure from my nook in the loft to my new little corner. I have my books, my art supplies, my journal, photographs, my vision board—my kit of things for introspection. I felt a restoration of a part of what keeps me positive, grounded, and hopeful. I now have a little space of retreat in a household full of people. I didn’t even realize I was missing it.
My students too have been struggling with a loss of space. Having their routines when they were at school, trying to work effectively at home created struggle, anxiety, depression, hopelessness. Some of my students had little siblings who tugged at them constantly. One had a disabled brother prone to screaming for large parts of the day. Another had a mother who worked a stressful job on zoom calls in the middle of their small apartment for 10 hours a day.
I urged my students that, no matter how small their space, no matter the people, that they too could create space their own. Take over a tiny closet. Reclaim a corner of their bedroom by moving something out. Push their desk in front of a window instead of a wall. Make small changes until they find a glimmer of joy that helps their spirits to align at a higher frequency.
We can also find outside spaces for working and being as the summer approaches. One of my favorite spaces for Zoom meetings is at a small table on our outside patio. I can look at the trees and birds while engaging with my colleagues. I walk our neighborhood on phone calls. I sip my evening tea on the front porch and take in the sunsets. Each of these moments of blending outdoors with my regular routine feel like tiny gifts.
Little tweaks can restore ourselves in a time of change. The places that help us to feel a part of something bigger. Productive when we don’t want to be. Put a plant from your office near your laptop in your at-home workspace. Find music that drowns out family noise and reminds us of our favorite coffee shop. Light a candle; add a lamp to have a better lit space rather than overhead lighting. Focus on your senses.
In this brave new world, we have the blessing of focusing on the little adjustments that can keep our spirits higher. How can you change the spaces in which you live to align with your yearnings and comfort?
With most of our lives slowing down considerably with the pandemic, we may find ourselves settling into our bodies. Much like a snow globe finding calm as the swirling stop, we can see more clearly our lives in times of stillness.
We can find “knowing” by listening within. This knowing comes from the gut or the heart—rarely from the head. The whispers we might have been hearing for a long time about a needed change may be starting to feel louder now. Some of these whispers are YES choices—going back to school, seeking out new hobbies, building relationships. Other whispers may be NO choices—ending relationships, creating boundaries, quitting a job. I find YES choices much easier to embrace than NO choices; other people are just the opposite.
Coaching is about helping people to hear this inner wisdom that is always speaking to us. To discern what a path can be, and to help to create scaffolding to get there. Sometimes we know the decision and need support to make it. Othe times we aren’t quite sure what the whispers are saying yet. The snow globe is still settling.
It is possible to accelerate the process by listening more deeply to ourselves. Notice work, people, activities that charge you batteries and those that drain them. What makes your heart sing? What work and people make you feel alive?
Even further, notice how you are showing up to do the work—how you are “being” and how that impacts the quality of your work. Also note how you are showing up impacts your interactions with colleagues.
I offer an exercise below for tapping into your inner knowing—a process I use to begin the retreats that I offer on strengthening inner wisdom. Research supports the value of leaning into feelings of joy, creativity and curiosity as a way to discern your path. The process for discernment below focuses more on being curious about how you feeling/being rather than what you are doing.
Write down three words that define how you want to FEEL about your decision–whether it be your career, your relationship or something else. These words might include: inspired, joyful, fulfilled, authentic, powerful, serving a greater good, making a difference, impactful, groundbreaking, integrative.
Sit with eyes closed and hold these being words in your body—focusing on your heart or your gut. Ask yourself—”What work can I do that most aligns with these ways of being?” This exercise can be used globally. It can also be used to work on a specific project.
Doing the exercise myself, I wrote: “Writing this blog, I want this work of mine to be authentic, inspired, and to serve the greater good. Before I begin writing every day, I remind myself of the purpose of my project and seek to channel this way of being as I do my work.”
Perhaps your snowglobe has calmed down such that you know exactly what your next step needs to be but you are afraid to take the leap. For others, you are feeling the unease associated with a change coming, but you are unclear how to proceed. Or perhaps a change has been forced upon you. I am always available for a free consultation to help to discern a pathway forward.
Take care of yourself, take care of one another, stay safe. Namaste.
Living in quarantine can lead to days that seem to stretch on for weeks–but with little opportunity to feel productive. Depending on the number of people in your home, it can create endless interruptions or long periods of silence. Adapting to new work protocols, switching to online work, and finding new ways to connect to others–they all take their toll.
Loneliness exists even when living with others—the lack of day to day connection with a broader world has been shown to reduce creativity, create brain fog. Isolation can mood swings, lack of focus, panic attacks, flashes of anger, flattened emotions, depression, loss of memory and declined cognitive function. We are wired for interaction–even introverts.
I find myself drifting through the mornings in our new reality, knowing that I have many projects that could be done but struggling to tackle any of them. The knowledge of many weeks of isolation ahead makes urgency fall aside.
We must acknowledge time and space for emotions and give ourselves the grace that our normal work habits are going to be compromised in extraordinary times. Yet as this time apart extends from days to weeks to potentially months, we find ourselves needing to find ways to create new rhythms to keep our businesses afloat. To make progress on deadlines. To create daily habits of work as a way to feel ourselves again and to tap into a sense of purpose that helps us to feel alive.
Keep a wide-angle view. The main goal for all of us is to stay afloat. Do not expect work to be an A+ effort. Selectively choose what activities must be superior effort–due to external demands or work that aligns with our own internal compass. Give permission for the rest to be “good enough.”
Even in regular times, all parts of life cannot be embraced at 100 percent energy at the same time. We can have it all, but not all at once. Even when we have a clear vision for career progress, it is important to consider how to do so within the long-range view. Some activities are easier to accomplish in the early stages of a career, some in the middle, some at the end. By pulling back to a wide-angle view of our lifespan, we can help to make better choices about how to show up in the moment of any phase of life, and to be fully present within it, rather than lamenting on the goals that are best accomplished at other times.
Make the most important daily goals about self care and connection. Trying times call for vigilance in self-care and helping others. I have faithfully used this checklist as an anchor to my new way of being as member of Quarantine 2020. I ask myself these questions, which I found on social media:
Quarantine 2020 oft quoted meme on social media
I have been leaning into a daily morning yoga practice, using an online exercise platform to push me forward. It feels like a delicious treat that in “normal” life would take up too much time. What chosen activity or habit might feel like a gift to you?
Create a weekly review plan. Developing a framework for your week ahead can help to create some structure. Assess the week before it begins—Sunday evening or Monday morning are good times for a weekly review.
“Your calendar will show what we value” is a useful metric for the task of prioritizing time when days blend together in quarantine. Begin with a broader sketch of the structure of your days. The blocks of time should be like categories—self-care (first!), plus meetings, independent work, and chores.
It helps to sort like-minded tasks into groups. It gives a sense of a shape of a week and helps to clarify priorities. Being aware that day to day tasks such as cooking and cleaning and caring for others might take much larger chunks of time than in a “normal time,” try to create a weekly schedule for our work time.
During quarantine, activities during this weekly time might include:
Ask what tasks need to occur during quarantine and what can wait.
Think about how a weekly plan can incorporate time that aligns with what you value the most, whatever that may be.
Look back at the previous week, note what worked, and build off of those successes.
Revise previously unrealistic timelines.
Develop a list of tasks for the next week that is less than might have accomplished during “normal” times, but long enough to see a path forward,
Observe the rhythms of your days. We have the time to be curious now. To pay attention to our habits and to try out new ways of being. Log the time you want to value—exercise, writing, meaningful time with your loved ones. Review each week and notice how you spent your time compared to how you wanted to spend your time. Prioritizing time also means noticing how much time we are wasting on task that drain our batteries–social media scrolling, binging too much television, drinking that extra glass of wine.
Remember to grant yourself the grace to do less. The acceptance to feel the feelings and take care of yourself and others. The space to breathe and create ways of being that might endure beyond these strange times.
Whether choosing a political candidate or a new career, a great way to discern your choice is to tap into your values. What are your core beliefs that structure your decisions?
Think about what matters most to you in the world. Values can be formed through experiences, influential people, family structures and culture, and even difficult times. Common values that changemakers identify include: giving back, creativity, innovation, making a difference, order/control, and equity.
Getting greater clarity on these beliefs can create a scaffolding that weathers the ups and downs of a lifetime. It can keep you focused on a longer-term vision of purpose. Without knowing your values, it is more possible to slip into dismay, disenchantment, aimlessness, and cynicism.
Identifying values is not just stating them but living them. The gap between your work and your vision should feel inspiring and energizing rather than depleting.
Aligning with values also helps to dispel notions of perfection. Values can define a sense of inner standards rather than external judgment. When you feel judged or beaten down, ask yourself how those external judgments align or do not align with your inner values. This mindful work also allows a re-calibration of yourself that can keep critics at bay.
Values may change over time. They might even conflict with some of the expectations of your job, your family, your religion, your politics. Be true to what feels right in your core, not your head. Articulating values and seeing how they align and do not align with your big goals in your life can help you to discern when its time to take the leap and shift to something bigger, more true—how you really want to be.
Resources for Living Your Values
You can help to distill your values by considering lists of words and debating which ones connect most with you. Here is a list to get you started.
Ask everyone to tell you about your gifts. Feeling really brave? Post the question on social media—a request for others to list your gifts. Create a visual collage, like a word cloud, of the words shared with you.
Revisit a rewarding moment of success. Think back to a time when you felt fully alive —a moment in time when you felt a huge energy hit and felt like you were flowing in the stream of success. Use your senses to remember the details of where you were, how your body felt, what the light looked like, who was with you. Then consider—what values/beliefs/principles underlie the meaning of this experience for you?
Journal about your values:
How do I define “meaning” in my life?
What does it feel like when I live my values?
How do I express my values in my work? my relationships?
