I have written this opening sentence about 10 times and deleted it this morning. I just cannot decide what to write. I did contemplate not writing anything this week, as I didn’t think I had anything to say that was new. I am still not sure if I have anything to write. These blogs are rarely structured, I much prefer to use a free writing approach. The problem is with this approach is that it can take a little of bit of time getting going and my opening paragraphs can ramble a bit as I tried to find a thread to get hold of. I have an idea I want to discuss courage today. Courage as some of you will know is one of my core values. About a month ago I had a 1:1 with my manager and I decided it would be useful to revisit my values. As I have changed roles in recent months it is time to reflect on what my sense of purpose is and reconnect with it. It is very easy when you are busy getting to know a new way of working at the same time as maintaining business as usual it is easy to lose sight of what is important to you and why you do your job.
I have been using these blogs to help me with this process. Free writing gives me the time and space to reflect on work and the impact this is having on me. It will however only get me so far. It is important to have a reflective, restorative conversation with someone, it helps me discover parts of my experience I might not be paying attention to and tests my narrative of myself. I am very lucky that my manager has a very reflective approach to our 1:1s which is massively helpful. I also have a wonderful friend Janis, who has been my mentor and supervisor for a decade now. She has an unnerving ability to look into my soul, and she never lets me off the hook. This week we met up and discussed my new role, how it is making me feel and how my values play a part in my successes and how I can use them to my advantage when I face challenges.
During our discussion it became very clear to me that my 2 core values have not changed, they may however shifted in focus. These values are Usefulness and Courage. I remember when I first identified them and put a name to them Usefulness was the value I focussed on. It was the touchstone for me, I would always ask myself…”is what I am doing useful”. Over the past couple of years I had stopped paying as much attention to my values as I probably should have. They were still at play in my life and were still letting me know how I was doing by either making me feel good about what I was doing or uncomfortable, but I was not always paying attention to the message they were giving me. As I reflected during our catch up, I recognised that having courage has become the focus of my values, and whether I am being courageous or not has become my guide for how I work. When I have shied away from situations and not used the skills I have, or when I have just gone with the majority I have felt inauthentic and generally these situations have got worse, but when I have shown courage and done the right thing or backed my own skill and ability, it has gone well and I have felt good.
The value of courage for me is having confidence in what I can do, showing up and doing it even though I am fearful of what people will think or whether it will work or not. In other words courage is doing something that holds a personal risk and doing it anyway. When I say personal risk, I am not sure I would do this if it was a physical risk, the value I place on courage is doing something in the face of psychological risk.
That whole reflective process has been incredibly helpful, reconnecting with Courage and Usefulness has been really helpful, to do an inventory of events and progress since starting my new role and notice when I have been consistent with my values and when I have not. I feel so much better, there is something reassuring about having that touchstone to help me notice when I am straying away from my values and when I am staying on my path.
Have a good week everyone.
Connected Coaching 