Your Sense of Agency
“It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you." - Neil Gaiman
Are you starting this year with your authentic core values and actually applying them to your life?
The above quote and question were inspired by a conversation I had with a new client a few weeks ago. Facing a brand new role and a new life in a different country. Yet, despite the changes, they find themselves falling back into similar patterns. They thought changing their environment, and the people they interact with would bring them the happiness they were looking for and that everything would fall into place finally; it turns out it didn't.
Do you find yourself in the same situation? Maybe you made some recent changes in your life (moved into a new apartment, moved teams, resigned from a job) but still couldn't feel the happiness and peace you were looking for all this time.
The thing is, you have to be very considerate in how you operate in your life. Whilst you might have shifted the environment and the people, you are still at the core of what you're bringing to every new situation, every new relationship, and every new work opportunity. It's only your environment that has changed, not you. Unless you make changes with your values and actually implement them into your life, you'll likely find yourself in similar situations no matter what change you make.
When you're living in alignment and walking with the right values for you, it doesn't matter what environment you find yourself in because you'll be operating with clarity and not getting swept up by everyone else's decisions, mannerisms, and behavioral kind of ways that might trigger you.
As we start a new year, I invite you to think about these things:
Am I waking up every day in charge with a sense of agency?
What is it that I want to bring to the situation?
How do I want to show up?
How do I want to be perceived?
How do I want to lead my team?
How do I want to convey my values in how I talk and how I execute my work?
After gaining clarity from reflecting, continue to walk with purpose and intention in everything you do so that you're not really tied to the situation or the environment changing to feel happy. Remember, happiness is an inside and continuous job.
If you want to create changes that stick and align with your values, so you no longer have to chase happiness, you can enroll in my upcoming masterclass, Creating Rituals and Routines for Success.
You'll learn how to:
Understand your own personal effectiveness cycle: to appreciate and the barriers to motivation
Increase self-regulation and self-leadership: to build better habits for holistic peak performance at work
Understand the consistent practices: needed to boost willpower and endurance during challenging times
Repeat excellence: in their working day to avoid burnout
Plus MORE!