This is part three of an ongoing article series. Part two is here.,
We have reviewed how to readjust your scale about your time and where it is flowing. Examining the scale of your life, does it weigh heavy in the areas you deem as a priority? We zoomed in on your priorities and detailed what they are overall. Understanding that all of this is a continual process and your priorities change and need to be realigned like a ship at dock. Tightening down the ropes when life is chaotic to focus on what is important to you in life. Allowing slack when the waters are calm so you can relax and grow. We want to now examine what success means to you.
The common trope is “Work-life balance”. I do not know of a single person who actually takes ownership of this phrase and means it. I feel it is more of a filler word and only tangentially what they truly mean, such as, “How’s it going? It’s going”. I believe people are so checked out, or what I have heard Jim Kwik refer to as Digital Dementia, but I digress. Work-life balance is a trope. Viewing work as the opposite of life is a polarizing stance as well. Work should not be all that there is to life. These are common stances that people only work for a paycheck, but that's not why you are reading. Anyone off the street can tell you this. Let us elevate the word and instead of work, we use career or mission. I often view it as a work>career>mission. Three steps that are simple but usually take most of a lifetime to achieve. Where are you currently?
Where are you currently?
0%Work
0%Career
0%Mission
Moving up the work>career>mission ladder, WCM for short takes a lot of processing and trying different jobs and activities out. When I work with clients the focus is either on the title or the money. These are hallmarks of societal marks of success. Success for thee, not necessarily for me. A title is a wonderfully summarized thing that allows you emotional clout when telling others what you do. It is placed on resumes, business cards, email signatures, and the like. Money is a much more direct correlation to success. You are paid in correlation to your importance to a process or idea. None of these items move you up the WCM ladder. It sucks but it's the truth. We all can name someone who is miserable in their Director of ______ job or makes a ton of money but who just constantly complains about work. In these examples, the person never aligned what success means to them vs. just falling forward to the next thing because another $500 a month or being able to tell my extended family that I got a promotion was more important. How do we define success then? Let's hit the question chart.
These questions are meant as grounding to figure out how you define success for yourself. Success is like art. It is different for each person and changes like the seasons in our interpretation of it. Look for a future article in this series to help you based on your answers move up the WCM pyramid. As always I would love to go over your results in a 1on1 coaching session, 1st session is always free. Sign up here today. Look forward to hearing from you.
-D
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