What guides your personal and professional life?

This week’s blog post challenges us to examine what guides our actions.

For the past several years I have become a lot more intentional about my direction.  I have always been goal directed—but I have become aware that I can be a bit “fuzzy” on my journey. It really does not matter if I have admirable intentions.  Those intentions need to be clearly stated and clearly connected to who I am and what I desire to accomplish.

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I am constantly seeking input and game film to help me with my movement toward improvement.  In the next few days I will be meeting with a trusted mentor and advisor to chart the coming year’s professional activities.

The first thing on our agenda: Core values.

I have always had these—but I have never committed them to paper.  As I started the process, I first started by listing my broad goals for the coming year.  It dawned on me, though, that the first step had to be for me to identify what I hold dear and important.  Without a clear awareness of that, how could I chart goals and direction for the future? The values provide the “whys” for my “whats” (goals).

We all need to be aware of what guides our actions?  Is it the chase for financial wealth and security?  Meaningful relationships? Intimacy? Health? Significance? Legacy?

What guides your personal and professional life?

Set aside some time this week to write your top ten core values.  There is something about seeing them in print that makes them very real. For me, the process quickly led to self-examination about how true I am to these. Where do I excel and where am I a major work in progress.

One last note.  I tussled with whether I should use (above) the singular “life” or plural “lives.”  While I believe there need to be clear boundaries and limits in our professional and personal lives, I also have come to understand that they are inextricably connected. One constantly affects the other. Do your core values reflect that connection?

Video recommendation of the week:

Consider the message from Tony Hsieh of Zappos in this video.

Make it a wonderful week—H.T.R.B. as needed.

Check out my website (http://www.stevepiscitelli.com/programs.html) for programming information as well as details about upcoming webinars  (http://www.stevepiscitelli.com/webinars).

Information on my newest book, Choices for College Success (3rd ed.), can be found at Pearson Education.

(c) 2014. Steve Piscitelli. All rights reserved.