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Quick Career Advice Reply 10. Are Your Values are Aligned with Your Work? Dear Ann: I have a wonderful career, but I have no time for a personal life. My family is worried that I’m missing out on the chance for marriage and family. I’m torn about what I really do want. To answer this question, you need to begin by examining your values carefully. When people’s lives are not aligned with their values, they begin to feel stress. They begin to feel like they are living to work, instead of working to live.* A useful exercise to figure out if you are out of alignment with your values is to try ranking them. List the following values from 1-16, according to your priorities: security, monetary success, family, status, wisdom, health, stability, productivity and competence, creative and artistic work, spiritual fulfillment, authority and decision-making, excitement, innovation, physical challenge, friendship, change and variety. You can modify the list to suit yourself. The hard part of this exercise is having to rank the values, when you probably feel as if many of them are equally important. However, it does clarify your priorities. Now, go back and re-list your values based on how you have actually spent your time in the last month. For example, if health is high on your priority list, but you spent little time exercising or eating right, it would fall toward the bottom of your time actually spent list. Compare the two lists: what you consider your priorities to be versus where you actually put your time. If your top priority values are low on your time list, you are probably feeling stress and dissatisfaction. Reallocating your time to reflect your values will help you feel more alive, productive and enthusiastic. For example, when Sharon--a successful executive—took this test, she realized that each step she had taken up the corporate ladder had moved her farther from her core values. She discovered that not only did she have less time for a personal and family life, but her increased responsibilities provided her with fewer opportunities to use her creative abilities. After going through much soul-searching in a work/life counseling program that helped her look at all the factors that contributed to a meaningful life for herself and her family, Sharon decided to make a dramatic career change. She took a position heading up a not-for-profit group where her business background was an asset in bringing corporate funding to community educational needs. She has found that the process has been tremendously re-energizing. While not everyone is in a position to change their whole career, re-examining your values can help you make changes that will lead to better balance of work and personal life. As little as a 10% shift in your focus on your roles and responsibilities, your travel schedule, and your job assignments can result in a 100 percent shift in how you feel about your life. |
