The Decision

As simple as our daily routines are at home these days, many of us have a lot of complexity in our lives. Making good decisions feels harder now in a dynamic, ever-changing environment.

Recently I faced a work-life integration dilemma. I had multiple opportunities to begin engagements with leaders and organizations to help them strengthen how they collaborate and lead. I was excited about the work and anxious to dig in. 

The work came all at once, though. Deadlines were tight. As an entrepreneur, this is exactly the problem I want to have. Yet, it’s hard to say no to interesting work.

I was torn about what to do. Here’s why.

At the beginning of 2020, I had decided that I would dedicate a significant amount of my time in August and September to my kids, who are heading to new schools. Now the situation is even more complex with both kids beginning middle and high school remotely. Yikes. 

Here we are eight months later, in the reality of August, and I’m conflicted on what to do with this business momentum and my family’s needs.   

I feel like a boat at sea. My business is like a big wave and my kids’ return to school is the sandy shore.  I could ride the wave to an amazing experience and land safely on the beach or the wave could sink my boat leaving me disconnected and stranded. The wave is thrilling and also ground shifting as it erodes the sandy shore. 

Here’s the truth. I can’t change the external factors of the current state of our world. I also can’t force organizations to change their deadlines to accommodate mine. What I can control is how I respond.  So, I turn to what has kept me afloat for the last 5 years to help me make decisions: my values.

My top values are connection and commitment. 

I learned to identify my top values and understand how they drive my behavior and choices when I worked at Brené Brown Education and Research Group. Living into your values is one of four skill sets of courage from Brené’s 20+ years of research. 

Also, research in neuroscience tells us that focusing on our core values can help us manage our reactions in stressful situations.

Here’s how I used my values to help me make a decision about my current situation. I asked myself:

▪       If connection is my top value, what does it look like to live into that value with my kids right now? How much time and what kind of energy will it take for me to be fully connected?

▪       What does it look like for me to live into my value of connection with my clients? What will it require in both my energy and time?

▪       Commitment is another value that drives my behavior. How can I fully commit to becoming the parent I want to be right now? If I fully commit to that vision of how I want to show up as a parent, how would that impact the level of commitment I can give my clients? 

▪       Where can I have the most impact right now by fully living into my values?

▪       When I look back retrospectively in a year from now, what do I want to be most proud of in how I showed up with my family and clients?

By getting granular on how I live into my values, I am able to decide when to say yes and when to say no, knowing I’m aligning my decisions with my core values.  

I’m currently living into my work-life integration decision. I feel calm and have grounded confidence that I made the right choice because I am practicing my values. 

Here’s why this approach works: When we boil down challenges and opportunities to the baseline of values, we remove the complexity and noise. We can get clear about our path ahead. 

My clients have used their values to help them make big decisions – and small ones – during the pandemic. They’ve also used their values to help them determine next steps in their careers, in their executive roles, and how to manage difficult situations at work and in their lives. 

There are no easy answers. By using our values, we are tapping into a resource that is already such a significant part of our decision making and behaviors. Bringing values to the surface and building awareness around them creates intentionality in us. 

It clears the fog and leaves us with both clarity and peace.   It calms the tide we experience in this complex and dynamic world full of big and small daily decisions we have to make. Using our values to help us make decisions allows our boat to crest the wave and intentionally move toward where we want to go.

Please reach out if you’d like to learn more about how to go deeper in applying your values.