Truth #4: It's a life's work

I love the synchronicity of life. I took a week off social media as I tried to catch up with myself after a whirlwind period of travel over the previous 3 weeks. So tonight, as I prepare to put together this week’s blog (which was technically last week’s blog), Truth #4 from my publication Leading with Power, I can’t help but smile to see that at its core, it’s about our values. So why am I smiling? Because we did a deep dive into this this week. The stars have aligned!

So, Truth  #4 is “It’s a Life’s Work”, which recognises that the job of “becoming” is a journey and not a destination. It’s about how we choose to live and lead, taking deliberate steps to design our lived experiences rather than waiting for them to simply happen to us. We are bombarded with images and ideals about what a perfect life looks like, and by striving to attain this, we can be distracted by the real purpose, which is to be, rather than to have.

As we go about experiencing life, we are influenced by the things around us – the people we spend time with, the subtle messages we see through advertising, social media and the like, the expectations that we carry with us on what it means to be a “good” person, an “effective” leader. We can lose ourselves in these ideals if we don’t take the time to assess where we are and decide where we want to go. We can wake up one morning with those feelings of discontent and dissatisfaction that slowly but surely creep up on us as we push these feelings away. After all, we don’t have time for them, right? Or perhaps we’ve grown up believing it’s indulgent to have them, or even worse, we’ve been told that if we think negative thoughts, we’ll manifest more. Until one day they are so loud that we can no longer ignore them, and we just know that something has to change, that we’ve somehow lost ourselves amongst the busyness of doing and having.

This happens to us when what we do and what we say no longer align with our core values. It’s a recognition that as we have evolved and grown, we haven’t done the work in remaining aware and connected to our true selves. That things have shifted internally, and yet our belief system, our thoughts and our actions don’t reflect this shift. Uncovering YOUR core values, not the ones others expect you to have, allows you to address this. It allows you to make the adjustments you need to realign and live and lead in sync with your values, alleviating those feelings of discontent and dissatisfaction. And more importantly, when we do this, we give others permission to do the same.

So, what’s one thing you can do to get back on the path of designing the way you live and lead rather than having it happen to you?

Take some time to uncover what really matters to you. Do some journaling, ask yourself the hard questions:

• If time, money, and responsibilities weren’t a consideration, what would I be doing?
• Why would I be doing that?
• What does doing that give me? How does it make me feel?

Use these questions to uncover YOUR values, the things that matter to you in this season of your life. And when you’ve got to the bottom of how you want to feel and how you want to be in the world, then consider what one action you could take to step you closer to that place. Take that action and then another and then another. Step into the driver’s seat and navigate the way YOU want to live and lead and show those around you what’s possible.

Life is a journey. Our evolution and growth are our life's work. And that is why an inspired life is done by design and not by default!

Want to read about all five, then download the publication at this link: Leading with Power.