A key component in our personal development and wellbeing is increasing self-awareness around our core values. When talking about values, we’re talking about what’s most important to us in life and this will be different for everyone. In fact, it will be different for each of us at different stages in our lives as our priorities, situation and relationships shift and evolve. When was the last time you thought about your values? I wonder, when was the last time you really thought about your values. If I asked you, “what are your top five values?” could you answer me? If you couldn’t, that would actually be quite standard and I also think quite fair. After all, we’ve got a lot going on. Yet, knowing our values and importantly, ensuring our actions are aligned with our values is an important element of wellbeing. When we’re out of alignment Have you ever noticed how you feel when a situation, or someone’s behaviour (maybe even your own) doesn’t match with your values? You may feel out of alignment, or like things aren’t quite right. You may even feel anxious, angry, or you may feel conflicted. You may notice these feelings reflected in your thoughts, or even in your body. Notice, where does this sit for you? Generally, a misalignment in values and actions doesn’t bring out the best in us. Notice what happens to your communication skills and coping skills. Generally, they take a step backwards. In contrast, when our values and actions are aligned, this can light us up and give us energy. We may feel a greater sense of wellbeing and purpose. How do you tap into your values and ensure they’re aligned with your actions? Step 1: Identify your core values There are many exercises available to help you tap into your core values. I often use one based on a tool produced by The Coaching Tools Company. You can download their tool here. Step 2: Understand how these values show up in your life Think about:
The same value can show up differently for different people We don’t all demonstrate our values in the same way. The same value can show up quite differently for different people. For instance, let’s take the value ‘creativity’. For one person, this may show up in an artistic sense, for someone else it may be around ways of thinking or their approach, and for yet others, it may be more to do with innovation. It’s therefore important to understand how your values shows up in your life, your actions and behaviours. Step 3: If necessary, adjust your behaviour to ensure your values and behaviours are aligned. If you feel out of alignment, think about what behaviours and actions you could change and what the impact would be on you. Use your values as a guide for your behaviours. A couple of points worth noting:
If you would like some support to help you gain clarity on what your core values are, how understanding your values can guide your personal and professional development, and the impact of aligning your values and actions on your wellbeing, please give me a call. Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au Let's Connect
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I’m not a huge fan of New Year’s Resolutions. This is because they often come from a ‘should’ mindset, rather than a ‘choose to’ mindset. I wonder if this is true for you. The goal might be to get fitter, to lose weight, to start a new project and yet, the mindset here is often associated with what you think you ‘should do’. The thing is, ‘should’ rarely lasts, and even if it does, the emotion that goes along with it is often associated with duty or obligation, rathen than with joy and desire.
As an alternative, I’ve often worked with both New Year’s Manifestations and New Year Themes. One or both may work for you too. New Year’s Manifestations Similar to New Year’s Resolutions, these are specific things you would like to achieve in 2017. The difference though is that rather than phrasing your goals as something you are ‘going to do’, you phrase them in the present. ‘I am …’ and ‘I have …’ statements work well. For example, I am participating in an exercise class once a week’. ‘I have completed project x with plenty of energy and enthusiasm’. Effectively these statements are a visualisation of how you would like to see your life from the perspective of them happening now, or having already happened. The power of manifestations is that they not only require you to really visualise what you want in your life, but they are phrased in the present. This is powerful! Visualising your life as if the change already exists allows you to be more mentally and emotionally committed. New Year Themes An alternative approach is to think about a theme or themes you would like to work with for the entire year. This might be around an emotion (e.g. 2017 will be a year of joy, or a year of peace), an approach (e.g. 2017 will be a year of play, of creativity, or of diligence), or it might be a theme of intention (e.g. 2017 will be a year of growth, of consolidation, of acceptance, or of new beginnings). I like themes as they give you the space to play with ideas and actions within the framework of the theme. They provide the lens, or approach for your thoughts, actions and mindset for the year. My themes for 2017 are growth, connection and heart. What will 2017 look and feel like for you? Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au Let's Connect Do you have a favourite artist? I really love Hundertwasser. I love the vibrancy of his work, the colours he uses in his paintings and also his philosophies. He was an artist, an architect and a bit of a trailblazer in the environmental space and he very much brought this into his work.
I have a book on Hundertwasser that I haven't looked at in a long time that I was flicking through today and I have to say, his work makes my heart sing. Sometimes I get a bit bogged down in day to day activities and forget to do things like just enjoy artwork and notice how it makes me feel. I wonder if this resonates for you? If so, I would highly recommend tapping into some sort of creative pursuit that you do simply for pleasure, not because you have to. It may be doing something creative yourself, or enjoying the creativity of others. It will still tap into the creative part of your brain too. Notice how it makes you feel. Does it light you up? Does it give you energy? Does it make you smile? If it does, what a great habit to introduce into your life. It doesn't take much. It could be a few minutes looking at an art book, dancing around the loungeroom to one song you love, drawing, writing in a journal, gardening, or whatever feels creative and uplifting for you. Have a wonderful and creative week. Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au Let's Connect Have you ever wondered how a Coach can help and support you?
Here are 11 great reasons to work with a Coach: 1. A Coach is a great sounding board A coach is someone you can bounce ideas around with. While a coach will encourage you to explore ideas and may even float a few suggestions, they will not give you advice or tell you what to do. Rather, they will ask you questions to help you dig deep to find the best option for you. 2. Accountability Sometimes following through is easier if you know someone is expecting you to take action. This helps with commitment and leads into the next point, motivation. 3. Motivation Coaching can help you to achieve the momentum you require to become and to then stay motivated. 4. Blind Spots A coach can act like a light house – we can shine light on some of those things you aren’t able to see on your own. 5. Alternative perspectives Your coach may see a situation or idea a little differently to the way you do. As a result, they may be able to provide an alternative perspective for you to consider. You can then decide if this new perspective is helpful for you. 6. Tools & Strategies Your coach will have a number of tools and strategies in their toolkit they can share with you. The best bit is that these tools and strategies generally empower you to help yourself, making learning sustainable. You can draw on them whenever you need to. 7. A safe space to explore ideas The coaching space is a non-judgemental, safe and supported space. This allows you to explore ideas and options to move forward, creating the positive change you would like to see in your life. 8. The right questions Sometimes finding the right answers requires someone to ask the right questions. Asking the right questions, some of which may well challenge you, is a key skill coaches bring to the coaching relationship. 9. Create positive change This is what coaching is all about – clarifying and putting plans, actions and mindset in place to allow you to create positive change. 10. Wellbeing Coaching is a key ingredient in helping you achieve overall wellbeing, be it through working with your values and strengths, or through the application of other evidence based strategies proven to increase wellbeing. Strategies in this space would obviously be tailored to individual needs. 11. Personal Development Coaching can help increase self-awareness, increase confidence, overcome self-limiting beliefs and manage life stress, amongst other areas of personal development. This is not an exhaustive list. There are many more great reasons to work with a coach. If coaching is of interest to you, I would love to have a chat! We can work out if: 1. Coaching is right for you and 2. If I’m the right coach for you. My clients have achieved inspiring results. I’d love to work with you to help you achieve the positive change you want to see in your life too. Have a wonderful day! Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au Let's Connect Laurenne Di Salvo is an Accredited Coach (ICF), Corporate Trainer and Learning & Development Consultant. She enables individuals and groups to take the next step in their development through evidenced based coaching practices and learning programs. #coaching #whatiscoaching #personaldevelopment #professionaldevelopment #development #learning #wellbeing #change #blindspots #perspective #soundingboard Do you ever struggle with confidence when you're learning something new or you're in a new situation? Many of my clients are quite hard on themselves when they feel they don’t know something, or they don’t know it as well as they would like to. To be honest, I’ve had to work on my own ‘self-talk’ in this space at times. Many people also suffer from ‘Imposter Syndrome’. You know, that feeling that others will discover that you’re a fraud, that you really don’t know what you’re doing and that you don’t really deserve to be in your job? There’s a model of learning that I really love here that has helped a few of my clients to ‘reframe’ this mode of thinking. It’s definitely worked for me. It goes by a number of names, including the Four Stages of Learning and the Hierarchy of Competence. It’s a model that was developed by W.S. Howell and it highlights the journey from development to mastery. What better model for coaching! This model highlights that to achieve mastery of a new skill, we all go through four stages of competence:
In line with this model is a common theme amongst my clients, and that is their love of learning. This makes sense given coaching is often going to challenge you to develop, to learn and to grow. The thing is that if you love learning, you are regularly going to be a novice for at least a period of time. I would therefore encourage you to:
So if you love learning and challenging yourself, Howell’s model can help to normalise the feelings you experience as you move through each stage. There are also strategies you can put in place at each stage to help you maintain your confidence, especially when the skill or knowledge you are acquiring takes a little longer to master. For help with this, please give me a call. I have some strategies in my toolkit that may just help. Happy learning! Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au #consciouscompetenceladder #competence #confidence #coaching #impostersyndrome #learning #development #growthmindset #selfcompassion Spring is a time of growth and change, a time to plant seeds and watch them grow and flourish. Now is a wonderful time to set your intentions for the next 3 months and to put some plans in place to bring them to fruition. For those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, what growth and change would you like to create this Spring? Watch the video below for more. Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au Curiosity is a wonderful thing, and not just because it piques your interest about something new, allowing you to learn and grow. Curiosity is also a key pathway to wellbeing, in large part because it fosters a mindful approach. Let me explain. Curiosity helps us suspend judgement – If we’re curious about something or someone, we tend to approach without pre-conceived ideas, therefore dropping judgement. We’re more likely to think about where the other person is coming from, or what could be influencing their perspective. We try to understand the idea, person or situation in greater depth. By default, this also brings us into the moment so that we’re approaching the situation mindfully, rather than through a lens of what we think we already know. The wonderful thing about this is that it leads to greater levels of openness, genuine interest and empathy, which builds stronger relationships, critical to our wellbeing. Curiosity helps temper our expectations – I wonder if you’ve ever approached a situation with a set of expectations around what should happen, or how things should pan out. For example, for those who have children, I wonder if you’ve had an opportunity to go out with your partner after not being out for a long time. As a result, you may have high expectations for the evening. Then, when it doesn’t quite measure up, you feel a little flat, a little disappointed. I would suggest that by approaching the evening with a mindset of curiosity, a mindset of ‘what could this night hold?’, rather than what the night should hold, you are more able to drop expectations and mindfully enjoy the moment. A curious mindset may have you asking yourself questions like, ‘what am I enjoying here?’, or ‘what am I grateful for in this situation?’ A focus on gratitude has been shown to increase levels of wellbeing and happiness. Curiosity allows for creativity – We are much more likely to approach tasks, situations and problems with creativity when we apply a curious mindset. Curiosity allows us to explore alternatives, to look at things from a different perspective, even to play with ideas and approaches. This is fantastic for our intellectual wellbeing and ongoing learning and allows for innovation, change and development. Curiosity ensures a learning mindset – When we’re curious, we can’t fail. We are likely to ask ourselves and others, ‘What can we do better?’, ‘How can I do this differently?’, ‘What’s an alternative approach?’, ‘Are there areas for improvement?’ This ensures we learn from experiences, rather than beating ourselves up about mistakes. This approach also allows for continuous improvement, as curiosity moves us out of ‘this is the way it has to be’ or ‘this is the way it’s always been’ thinking. A learning mindset is critical to our wellbeing in terms of our confidence, resilience and lifelong learning. Curiosity fosters self-compassion – In the same way that curiosity stops us judging others, it also stops us from judging ourselves, leading to greater levels of self-compassion. If we can be curious about why we feel the way we do, why we reacted as we did, what triggered us or why we found something difficult, amongst other examples, we are more likely to be gentle with ourselves and to practice self-compassion. This is important for our emotional wellbeing. Curiosity gets us into a state of flow – Often when we’re curious about something, we get completely absorbed in what we're doing to the point that we lose all sense of time. Martin Seligman, father of Positive Psychology, describes this state as ‘Flow’. This state has been shown to result in greater and more enduring levels of wellbeing and happiness. So get curious! I wonder how it will impact your wellbeing? Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au #curiosity #growthmindest #coaching #learning #development #strengths #flow The Story So Far… In Discovering The 3Ps to Launch, Grow or Reinvent Your Career – Part 1, we talked about your passion and purpose as being ‘what’s right with you’ and we outlined some tips on how to tap into your passions. In Part 2 we looked at your purpose as your ‘why’, how to explore this and why it’s significant. In Part 3 we bring this together and look at how to express your passions and your purpose through your Personal Brand, as well as why this is important. Personal Brand – What it’s not! At this stage you may have an idea of what your passions are and how they underpin your purpose, along with some ideas around your strengths, values, skills, experience and talents. If not, give me a call (0413 776 564) and I can help you with this. Before we talk about personal branding, let me share with you that the first time I heard about the concept of a personal brand I actually found it a bit ‘icky’. That’s the technical term! The reason I found it ‘icky’ is that I didn’t really understand it properly. I felt that I needed to decide what I wanted to be and then create a package of myself to represent that. I now know I had it the wrong way around. Personal branding isn’t about being something you’re not. After all, that’s very difficult to sustain and the truth is that people see straight through it. What is Personal Branding? So what is personal branding? Really, it’s about understanding who you are, what your strengths are and how you are unique, and then presenting this to the world, and in particular to the workplace in a genuine, authentic and consistent way. Consistency is important here because consistency is a component of trust and you want people to trust your brand. Another way to think about your personal brand is as your reputation. It’s your calling card. It’s what you’re known for and how people experience you. Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com says personal brand is what people say about you when you leave the room. And thinking about your personal brand has become increasingly important with the surge of social media, as you need to think about how you are portraying yourself both in real life and online. This is where it’s really important to know what’s right with you, as we touched on in Part 1. Considerations In thinking about your personal brand, consider:
In all of this, you will start to develop a package of your values, goals, and experience in a way that shows what unique solutions you can offer an employer, be it your current employer or a future employer. It can take a bit of time to work through your personal brand, but it’s well worth the effort to understand this and how it impacts the way people experience you. Does your Personal Brand represent you accurately and as you would like it to? Summing Up In summing up all three parts of this blog:
If you would like some support to explore your passions and purpose and to understand how this will form your personal brand, give me a call (0413 776 564) and we can do this together. Have a wonderful day. Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au In The 3Ps to Launch, Grow or Reinvent Your Career – Part 1, we talked about your passion and purpose as being ‘what’s right with you’. We also outlined some tips on how to tap into your passions. In Part 2 we look at your Purpose. Purpose – Your ‘Why?’ Working out your purpose is no small question, yet this is probably more important than your passions. This is because, while your passions can be transient, your purpose tends to be more stable. Your purpose can be described as your ‘why?’ and this is what will allow you to thrive not only at work, but at life. Your life purpose doesn’t have to be your career or your job, but if you can align the two, all the better. “He who has a why can endure any how.” German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once said, ‘He who has a why can endure any how.’ Knowing your why is an important first step in figuring out how to achieve the goals that excite you and that help you create a career and a life you enjoy. Focusing on your purpose can also help to keep you going during challenging times. Purpose and Meaning in Life Are Fundamental Human Needs In positive psychology terms, achieving a meaningful life contributes to an increased sense of wellbeing. And that’s because finding purpose or meaning in life and contributing are fundamental human needs. Great! So how on earth do you work this out! And, does this actually have to come from your work? And how is it different from your passions? Where Do You Invest? One way to understand your purpose is to think about where you feel driven to invest your time, your focus and your personal energy. Going Back to Move Forward For me, going back to move forward was helpful in working through my purpose. Thinking back to when I was a teenager, I was always drawn to the helping professions. I got off track for a bit because back then the helping professions were all in the therapeutic or medical space. I’ve since realised that my purpose is more around helping people thrive through the developmental spaces (coaching and training), rather than the therapeutic spaces. When I think about my why, it’s the satisfaction I get from supporting people to thrive. When I found myself in roles that didn’t allow me to do this, I wasn’t really happy and needed to find ways to ensure I could come back to this. Some examples of purpose might include a few of the following: for healers, their purpose may be about improving and sustaining well-being; for artists, it may about creating something meaningful or beautiful; entrepreneurs and inventors might want to bring new and useful things into the world; for justice-seekers, it’s often about righting wrongs, defending the defenseless and making the world a better place. Purpose and Values As you can imagine, all our ‘whys’ are underpinned by different values, and tapping into your values is an important part of working out your purpose. Importantly too, it’s about then making sure your values are aligned with your actions, with the work you do, and ideally, with the values of the company you work for or you would like to work for. There are many ways to explore your values. One way I heard about that won’t give you a definitive answer, but which acts as a bit of a thought starter, is to ask yourself three questions:
Again, this isn’t going to give you a definitive list, but it’s a thought starter. If you are interested in delving into your purpose and into your values in greater depth, give me a call (0413 776 564) and we can work this through together. Once you have a good understanding of your passions and purpose, you will want to express this through your Personal Brand. We’ll discuss this in Part 3. Have a wonderful day. Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au I wonder if have any questions that play on your mind around your career journey? Questions like:
I think there are two things necessary to answer your questions:
Change So change - the thing about change is that can be scary and exiting, and overwhelming and wonderful. Regardless of how we get to the point of change, the key thing about change is that it’s constant. I think it’s generally accepted these days that we’re likely to have at least 3 career changes in our lives. That’s certainly been true for me and I expect that I still have a long career ahead of me. Why is it that people change careers multiple times? After all, it takes courage and self-awareness and pushes us out of our comfort zones. No doubt there are many reasons. One reason is that people generally don’t want to work just for money. Of course money is important, but it’s really a hygiene factor. That is, we need it, but it’s not what keeps us motivated long term. Rather, we’re looking for enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. After all, we spend a lot of time at work! Sometimes changes to our work lives are voluntary and sometimes we’re pushed (e.g. redundancy). Whatever your catalyst, one of the keys to effectively navigating change is to be proactive, and this requires you to make choices. To make good choices you need to understand what’s important to you. This is where tapping into the 3Ps can help, guiding you towards your personal version of success. The 3Ps The 3Ps are your Passion, Purpose and Personal Brand. These are critical factors in guiding your career journey, and I do say journey as career really is a journey, not a destination. It’s not that anyone gets to a particular role and then doesn’t want to develop further. After all, growth and learning is part of the adventure. Career is about continually navigating your personal journey. In this blog, we’ll touch on purpose, but the key focus is the role of passion in your career journey. We’ll look at purpose and personal brand in upcoming blogs. Passion Part of looking at both passion and purpose is about looking at what’s right with you, what lights you us, what provides meaning in your life. Traditionally we’ve been told to look at what’s wrong with us and to develop these areas. Yet it’s what’s right with us that’s going to guide our journey, and what’s right with us is our strengths, our values and our skills, and this all underpins our passions and purpose and allows us to be authentically us – which is our personal brand. This idea has strong foundations in positive psychology. It’s a wonderful framework to underpin your career journey because it’s based on growth and development and about finding out what engages you and what’s meaningful to you, allowing you to live a happy and fulfilling life. Strengths and Weaknesses as a Sailboat I read a metaphor in the positive psychology literature that really resonated for me. It likened the use of our strengths and weaknesses to a sailboat. Let me explain. If you think of your weaknesses as the holes in the boat, you obviously need to plug them. You can’t ignore your weaknesses or the boat will sink. However, no matter how well you plug them, it won’t impact the direction the boat sails, or how fast it moves. If you focus on your strengths, which are often linked to your passions, these are the sails. The more wind you put in your sails, the more passion you put into your sails, the faster you can go and the easier it is to guide the direction you want to move. Part of what we want to do is to work out how to put wind in our sails. What is Passion? Let’s explore passion. Passion’s a word that gets thrown around a bit these days, a bit like ‘awesome’. But what is it really? Passion is your drive, your motivation, your zeal. I like to think of it as energy – when you feel passionate about something, you both bring a lot of energy to it and you also get a lot of energy from it. Flow Whichever way you understand it and whatever passion looks like for you, if you can tap into your passions and apply them in a work context, you tend to find yourself in ‘flow’ a lot more often and this is a state that’s been linked to greater happiness and wellbeing. In positive psychology terms, it allows you to reach what Martin Seligman calls the ‘Engaged Life’. This state of flow is where you are totally absorbed in what you’re doing to the point that you lose all sense of time. It’s worth thinking about what you’re doing when you get into a state of flow as this can be a good indicator of your passions. The next question is, how do you tap into your passions and what happens if you feel like you don’t have any? Tapping into your Passions Some people can easily tell you what they’re passionate about. Others have to think a lot harder and for some people, they may even feel they don’t have a passion, or they may feel like they used to know, but that they lost their mojo somewhere along the line. This might be due to getting lost in daily routines, or having children and taking on different roles. Whatever the reason, you can sometimes lose sight of your passions. There are many ways to tap into your passions. One method is to use mind mapping. On a piece of paper, write down ‘passions’ in the middle of the page and then brainstorm all the things you enjoy doing around the outside. Then dig deeper. What is it about those things that you enjoy? For example, you might have passions around guitar, drawing and writing. If you dig deeper, you may discover that the common theme is creativity, or it could be a love of learning something new. It’s the underlying theme and what it means to you that will help you identify what you could take into a new role, or even ‘recraft’ into your current role. That is, you may discover that any role you take on needs to allow for continual learning. If you would prefer to stay in your current role, you may be able to ‘recraft it’ to incorporate a greater level of learning. You may choose to ask for stretch assignments, or you might look for other on the job learning opportunities. Strengths Discovering your passions requires you to work to your strengths and to use these in your role, be this a role you are about to launch into, one you’re already in, or into a whole new area. One way to identify your strengths is to use the VIA strengths finder, which is a free online tool. If you’re interested in learning how to apply these strengths to a current or future role, give me a call and I can help (0413 776 564). Applying your strengths in the work you do is more likely to align you with a career that’s right for you, rather than only using the traditional approach of looking at transferable skills. So passion is your drive and motivation, it’s what interests and excites you and gets you into flow. Purpose on the other hand is about your ‘why?’ We’ll have a look at this in Part 2. Have a great day. Warmest wishes, Laurenne Di Salvo Leadership & Professional Development Coach | Corporate Trainer | Learning & Development Consultant 0413 776 564 www.harvestcoaching.com.au |
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March 2024
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