Be Honest with Yourself
It’s time to audit the alignment of your values and priorities
Working with a coach isn’t easy—at least not a good coach. Coaching requires the client to be brutally honest with themselves and willing to make sometimes uncomfortable changes in their life and work. I admire the people who sign up for coaching because it’s truly courageous to go deep and talk about the parts of yourself that are holding you back from being who and doing what you truly want.
My favorite parts of coaching sessions are when the client has an “ah-ha” moment where they see themselves and their patterns from a totally different perspective. That lightbulb moment instigates a cascade of awareness that helps them become a newer, more conscious version of themselves. They move from stuck and defeated to action and hope.
Even if you aren’t working with a coach right now, there are some things you can do to increase your awareness and work to change limiting beliefs and actions. One place to start is to audit yourself. Do your values align with how you actually live your life?
Management expert Peter Drucker describes it this way:
“Tell me what you value and I might believe you, but show me your calendar and your bank statement, and I’ll show you what you really value.”
This challenge comes up frequently during coaching sessions. A client will say that they value deep work time where they can focus and engage in strategic thinking. When I ask them how often they actually have deep work time, they typically respond, “Oh, not often. I don’t have time! I’m just so busy with other urgent meetings.”
A quick audit of their calendar shows that they do actually have time for deep work, if they reprioritized their time. That’s why an audit of your calendar and bank statement show how you actually prioritize your time and money. If you find a misalignment between what you say is important and how you actually spend your resources, then it’s time to make some changes.
This is where working with a coach can be extremely helpful. Together, we can discover why you have this misalignment in your values and priorities. Is it because you feel overwhelmed by the urgent? Could it be Imposter Syndrome? Are you scared you’ll miss something important if you unplug for deep work? Are you afraid to delegate to your team, which would free up time for deep work?
You may notice that these questions reveal much deeper issues than “not having time.” They pierce right to the core of your being; your fears and uncertainties. Often the surface challenge is really covering a deep-seated anxiety that, once addressed, will help resolve the surface issue.
Asking these questions can be uncomfortable because they require you to be honest with yourself. But if you don’t confront this misalignment, you may keep lying to yourself for years. Eventually you’ll look back and wonder how you got so far off track from the values and dreams you held inside yourself and buried under busy work. To prevent that kind of outcome, be honest with yourself. Audit your time and spending, and courageously make changes now.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
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The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant, and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
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