Aligning your values

A little while ago I read the book Disrupt-her (2019) by Miki Agrawal and was buoyed by her take on the empowering and inspiring ways we, as women, can ‘disrupt’ the way we have been trained to behave in our personal and professional lives. Of relevance here is disrupting the commonly held belief and practice that we need to have a ‘career path’. Instead of such a linear trajectory within a chosen field, Miki Agrawal encourages us to follow a ‘lit path’, experiencing moments that teach us skills, inspire us in different ways and allow us to evolve and grow as people to find a complementary role that better suits us now. There is an encouragement to release and reset people in our lives who don’t bring joy, but have simply been there for a long time, workplaces and roles that bring no meaning or benefit to us but somehow are expected of us. The releasing and resetting is not as easy as it sounds until we think about it as moving toward what’s meaningful, inspiring and values-laden.???

Making unconventional life choices can feel quite natural for some and uncomfortable for others. I have always been a little unconventional and am well-versed in taking the road less travelled. I have often wondered about what factors make one person feel more comfortable with disrupting compared to others who are much less comfortable with that and choose to maintain the status quo. What drives people to make and maintain life choices appears to be related to a few things including socio-cultural conditioning, family of origin and other relational influences, privilege, and opportunity as well as self-reflective practice and values.??

Living in accordance with your values will not come easily all of the time. Living in accordance with your values does not mean you don’t ever act, behave or think outside the values that you have. We are unlikely to perfect the practice of living every second in accordance with our values; however, we are very capable of reflecting, correcting, making adjustments, and acknowledging when we have strayed and get back on track. To do this we must employ the qualities of humility, courage, and deliberate attention.??

Particular workplaces, organisational cultures, personalities, expectations, and responsibilities can cause many of us to be distracted, get off track and become misaligned, finding ourselves acting in ways that are more in line with others’ values, or organisational demands. It is easy to get swept up in our environmental and interpersonal environment and it’s not until we are faced with some negative consequences that we stop to take stock.??

Have you ever been in a workplace situation where you have turned a blind eye, not spoken up, cut corners, or underperformed ethically? Have you ever been in a role that was draining or boring? Have you been in a situation where you had a conflict of interest? Most of us have had some form of misalignment, it’s very common. Ideally, we work on preventing misalignment from happening in the first place. But we also need practices to develop an awareness to catch it early and address our position.?

?1. Preventing misalignment: Setting your attention to what you want?

First step, focus on what you want:?

Broadly, we can work on becoming clear on our professional and personal value system.??

What is it that I want / what experiences do I value and what professional qualities do I want to embody? Make a note of them in an easily accessible place and refer to often. Add to the detail of what it looks like and feels like. Specifically, take 10-15 minutes to really focus on detail of what it is you want. Instead of saying ‘I hope I don’t get nervous in the meeting / during the presentation’ focus on ‘I can imagine myself being alert and focusing while working well.’?

Other questions to reflect on:?

• What do you want (focus on what you want not what you fear)??
• What are your grateful for (focus on what you have, not what you lack)??
• What is going well? ?

2. Practices to develop awareness so we can address our position in relation to what we want.?

Practice regular mindful self-reflection on where you’re at and which direction you’re headed, then return to your notes on what you actually want ~ do the two align???

Some of you would be familiar with open water swimming and the importance of sighting regularly in order to stay on course. Without regular sighting, even the most experienced open water swimmers often stray off course due to the currents of the water, or their particular bias in posture. We are like this in life, except the currents in the water are replaced by other environmental factors such as workplace culture or external socio-cultural expectations and norms that ‘steer’ us off course or steer us away from where we actually want to go. So like open water swimming, sight regularly to ensure you stay on course. Become clear on what you value and what experiences are meaningful to you, remind yourself of these things often, the rest follows.???

3. Develop insight into what has steered you off course in the past.

In addition to the above steps, it’s important to develop some insight into patterns that may have limited you in the past and be mindful of their pull. Examples of the things that can steer us off course include:?

• ‘People pleasing’ putting more importance on others being ‘happy’ with you?
• ‘Conflict avoidance’ putting more importance on ‘keeping the peace’?
• ‘Fear of change’ trying to avoid challenging yourself and getting out of your comfort zone?
• ‘Second guessing’ yourself, whether that’s because you’re surrounded by more experienced colleagues, your professional self-esteem has taken a knock, or it’s a pervasive habit of yours.?

These are just a few examples of habits of the mind that can act as undercurrents and steer us away from what we actually want. Once you’ve developed insight, you can more easily reflect on whether you have been influenced by it. Sometimes it’s helpful to share this with a good manager, supervisor, mentor, therapist or friend so they can also guide you back in the right direction.??

We are taught to have a ‘career path’ rather than a ‘lit path’. We are naturally drawn to what’s familiar and often go with the flow, so if we need to change direction deliberate re-focus is necessary. This means, we need to be clear about what we want, be aware of our position in relation to what we want (are we going in the right direction?) and have an awareness of the typical ‘currents’ that have steered us off course. We must pay particular attention to ‘sighting’ and re-directing during the times when these currents are around.??

-Dr Sonja Skocic, Director of Clinical Programs / Senior Clinical Psychologist