To start the year, I am writing a series of posts around the “the career of life” series. In these posts, I focus on experiences and skills that help us succeed in our careers, but also and perhaps more importantly, at being human.
I noticed an interesting pattern. The more I ask for advice from mentors, friends and coaches the more I hear this question:
Well: What do you want?
And while for many it is a pretty straight forward question, for some of us the answer is literally limitless. There are so many things I want, and any given course of action, could theoretically yield different results.
But to paraphrase Lewis Carroll: If you don’t know where you are going, then it doesn’t matter which road you take. So I posit, that it is paramount and absolutely necessary for our lives that we pick a path and end goal to guide us. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to truly know what we care and matters to us, so when we get to the end of the road, it is hopefully somewhere meaningful to us.
In short, we should all be more self aware.
But how do we do that?
I find that spending time to examine our values, evaluating our day to day emotional states, and making decisions that honor these two is the best way to do this. On my end, here’s what I have done to expand on my self-awareness:
- Built an actual “inventory” of my top values: About five years ago, I read an essay from Taylor Pearson on “How to Discover Your Core Values”. In the article, Taylor explains how we all have an internal set of rules and expectations. The closer we are to our internal systems the better we feel when we make decisions and the more we honor ourselves in the long term. On my end, I took a look at his list and came away with the following core values: Freedom, self-development, mindfulness, power and authenticity . I used these almost everyday when thinking through my prorities and can’t recommend this exercise for enough for others.
- Meditation and journaling: Once I heard the phrase “prayer is when you talk to god, meditation is when you listen” and I believe it is fairly close to my experience. Meditation allows me to listen to myself and my thoughts, even when the effort is to have a blank mind. Above and beyond meditation is journaling. After you’ve listened to yourself, taking a bit time to seat with said thoughts, writing down and organize them is also invaluable. Writing forces you to do that. Most of us can’t write at our speed of thought and thats the beauty of writing: Slowing yourself down enough until the thought is captured can only enhance it.
- Processing and evaluation time: In my case, I take 5-10 minutes every day to look at my list of things I did during the day while thinking of the ones to do tomorrow. I take a few minutes to think through what I could have done better (regardless of outcome) and if I generally was ok. On top of this I have dedicated time each week with either my executive coach or my therapist, and they also help me evaluate and think through next steps, in a way that consider my values.
This is a pretty short-list but it has been a game changer for me. Being more self aware has reduced my stress and worries about life direction. I am sure that it is definitely some of the best use of my time in my entire life and I recommend it wholeheartedly to everyone!
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