The Propeller of Life - Passion or Inaction?

How do you stay true to yourself? How do you make decisions which are consistently guided by personal values? The Value Compass (covered in an earlier article) is a tool that helps you to make such decisions. It guides you to make conscious choices, with an awareness of the impact on yourself and others. With this heightened awareness, you may wonder, where do all these decisions take you? How clear are you about the things that you are passionate about?

Empty Inside

Tom was elated! He had an Ivy League Degree and was excited to begin his
career as a financial analyst at a large investment bank. His career coach
had helped him realize that numbers were his passion. He had a clear ambition
to be the Head of Analytics within 10 years at a Fortune 500 company.

Fast forward to the future, 8 years later, Tom was Head of Analytics at a 
Fortune 50 company. He was making headlines in the Financial Industry. 
Tom owned an apartment in a nice neighborhood, drove a fancy car and 
was at the top of his game. From the Outside-in, Tom seemed so successful 
and must have felt great about it. 

Looking Inside-Out, Tom actually felt 'Empty Inside'. He wasn't sure why 
he felt this way. He loved his job and was good at it. That is what had 
helped him rise up the ranks. He began to question whether this was it 
for him in life. Was this all that he was passionate about? 

Find Your Passion

Have you ever felt like Tom? Most people feel like this at some stage. One probable reason for this 'Empty Inside' feeling is a lack of clarity about your passion. The word ‘passion’ is often loosely used and means different things to different people. In this article, the word means, important areas of your life or things that excite you or energize you or motivate you. It could also include things you love doing and even things you dream of doing.

Tom seemed to have “Followed his passion”, with 8 years of singular focus. Yet he felt ‘Empty Inside’ as he needed clarity on other things that energize and motivate him. Thus, a balanced approach could have left him with a greater sense of fulfillment. How would you benefit from clarity on the things that you love doing and excite you? How would it help you to have a balanced approach to life?

The Propeller of Life (PoL)

The Propeller of Life is a powerful coaching tool to uncover and focus on what excites you. The analogy is drawn from a real propeller, a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. Similarly, the PoL tool helps you to understand what propels you forward. You can use the tool to access the energy that will thrust you towards achieving your important goals.

A functional propeller can have one or multiple blades. Multiple blades are most commonly used as they help reduce vibration and improve balance. Similarly, in our life, it helps to uncover more than one driving force so that life also feels balanced. Finally, adding more blades can be both helpful and harmful. The number of blades depends on the machine. So in life adding more blades would depend on your life situation and your ambition. 

Soaring without time to Reflect

Like everyone else, you too have a propeller that keeps you going non-stop. Life moves at a quick pace and you are caught up with just doing. Doing things, to get more things and in doing, losing clarity. The 'Empty Inside' feeling might be caused by this lack of clarity. Visually this could look like a neglected propeller that is losing its effectiveness.

Imagine when you were a kid, filled with enthusiasm about so many things, a shiny propeller with so many blades and so much energy. As time passed, your ambition, external circumstance, the pressure to perform and external marketing influenced you. This shifted your focus to only doing and achieving. Like a captain who only looks at revving up his prop but forgets to look at the condition of his blades. In life, this could lead to a lack of reflection and lack of conscious focus on your drivers.

So, it is time to clean, polish and inspect your blades. Use the PoL process to 

• Gain clarity on the important areas in your life
• Evaluate your level of fulfillment in each of these areas
• Set clear goals to improve your level of fulfillment

The Propeller of Life Process

Outlined below is the process to use this tool and an example of how Tom could use it.

Step 1: Reflect & Identify Your Blades

Think back to the time you felt energized and motivated. What areas of your life were you working on? Reflect on things you love doing and things you dream of. Think about times when you felt fulfilled. What do you achieve that makes you feel this way?

When Tom sat down to reflect, he realized that he has a singular focus on his career. He looks back at life and looks ahead, he lists down other areas that he is passionate about. He arrives at the 5 areas given below. These areas are an example so feel free to use your own words and your own number of blades in your propeller.

• Work – career, profession, and business
• Earn – finances, savings, and investments
• Learn – personal development, education, and qualifications
• Fun – recreation, vacation, hobbies, and interests
• Connect – friends, family, society, spirituality, and mindfulness

Step 2: Rate your current and desired level of fulfillment in each of these areas. 

Be honest with yourself. Which blades need some polish? How fulfilled do you feel about each area today? Which blades are bent or out of shape? When you look at the desired level of fulfillment, don’t be bothered about how you will get there. Focus on, where you would like to be and by when. Tom does this on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest)

Step 3: Set a vision, goals, and milestones for each area

Your vision will motivate you to bridge the gap. Goals will improve your clarity on how to get there. Milestones will serve as a progress check on your journey. Tom would need to set a vision for each area in his life and set 1 or 2 goals (short-term, mid-term or long-term) for each area. He then needs to break down his goals into milestones that he can monitor. Given below is a partially complete example for the Connect area.

Step 4: Work with an accountability partner to ensure you stay focused

Accountability partners are a great way to ensure you don't get back to your old ways. For example, Tom picks his university professor (who he is still in touch with) as his accountability partner. He shares his Vision, Goals, and Milestones in an email and confirms that he will report monthly progress on these. 

Passion or Inaction?

You are on your life's journey right now and reading this article is the first step to pause and reflect on your actions. As you continuously strive to achieve more, your propeller will get dirty. You will need to regularly maintain, inspect, adjust and polish it to get the most out of your life.

Using the PoL tool is like taking a pit stop to reflect on your life. It can ensure your actions are balanced and take you in the direction you want to go. The choice is yours, gain clarity and work with a balanced approach towards your passions or just keep doing and live with inaction in other areas that you are passionate about.

P.S. This article is the second one in a series of articles focused on living a fulfilled life to achieve success and stay engaged at work and life. Please click here to view the first article in this series about The Value Compass.