Over the years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of leaders who have a meaningful and prosperous work-life and asked, what’s your secret? As time went on, I analyzed and compiled their answers, which can be reduced to a simple acronym “ACTT.” When we are fully Aligned, have a good Crew, know our Transformation Strategy and have a Transition Plan, we feel fulfilled and for some of us, that feels like Every Day is a Friday.
For the entire month of September we will be digging in to this concept of Alignment.
Before you read any further may I ask you a question, “How Important is a meaningful and prosperous work-life to you?”. If it’s 10 out of 10 important than I invite you to keep reading because when we are aligned within ourselves we feel fulfilled and can approach whatever comes our way with grace and ease.
“A” is for Alignment
Align yourself with your values
How well aligned are you with your personal values? In the personal values section of my book, you can identify your top values and prioritized them. This is one of the first steps in your leadership transformation. Many leaders never start on something they know they need to do because they fear the conflict between what they want AND what they think their business requires. Leaders in this situation appear to have two competing values playing a tug-of-war with their desire for a life well-lived and their perception of what’s necessary to compete in the business world.
For example, on one hand they want to feel fulfilled by creating a lasting legacy of their own, while on the other hand they don’t want to risk financial consistency (oftentimes they don’t want to cut staff to maintain their income either). Another example of a conflict in values might be the desire to have freedom of self-expression during the work day, but not wanting to risk your position as senior leader. (“I don’t like my manager, but she does a good job. So I need to put up with it and keep my distance from her.”) The good news is that your values do NOT have to be mutually exclusive. You can choose to be yourself and be an effective leader at the same time. The question becomes: How do you reconcile your conflicting values? This is where coaching and communication strategies can develop positive change. How do you get these apparently conflicting sets of goals to reconcile?
Align yourself with your commitments
Now, let’s talk a bit about commitment. You have to put yourself first and know what you will tolerate and what you won’t. The distinction that helps me with this is recognizing that self-care is doing what I need to do for myself and hoping it doesn’t negatively impact others versus being selfish, which is when I don’t give a rat’s @$$ about others. So knowing what I will tolerate and what I won’t tolerate helps me reconcile my values. Your commitments may be something like:
- Self-care
- Quality time with my partner/family
- Work-life flexibility
- Giving back to my community
- Living a prosperous and meaningful life
If you find that your commitments are not properly prioritized, that’s okay; we all fall prey to that. It’s in these times we realize how compassionate we are with ourselves because it’s a perfect time to practice recovering. However, when we misplace our priorities and go on in that condition for too long, we can get stuck in an unhealthy work-life balance. Self-sabotage is very subtle and you only need the light of awareness to start to recover.
Align yourself with your purpose
When we are aligned with our life’s purpose and have made a commitment to living our purpose, our confidence builds and our decisions become clearer. For me, I know that I am a “Fierce Snap Inspiring Leaders to Live their Legacy”. My life purpose is to inspire a life well-lived. If you feel confused about your purpose, think about a metaphor you resonate with like a bridge or a lighthouse. Perhaps you have people in your life who you trust who can help you identify a metaphor for yourself. After that, think about the impact you want to make based on that metaphor. Once you know your purpose, you can align the gaps in the market (or your world) with the value you bring.
Making it Real:
- What are your values? On a scale from 1-10 (10 being the highest) how much of your day to you spend living your values?
- What are you tolerating?
- What are you committed to doing?
- What do you know about your life purpose?