Building personal resilience is about consistent habits to prepare for and manage periods of difficulty of stress. Integrate Resilient Rituals into your day to day to build personal resilience and thrive – in work and life!
I’ve thought a lot about purpose in the last few years. My career in engineering and construction had its ups and downs – challenging, fun, interesting, but often unfulfilling. I had a persistent underlying feeling that it wasn’t what I was meant to be doing… but it wasn’t until this year that I got the self-awareness, courage, and kick from the universe the do something about it!
Your purpose is your “why”. It’s the deep-seeded reason you do what you do, and a fundamental piece of being a happy, healthy, and resilient person.
The reason is simple: when you understand your why, you can prioritize the parts of your life that embody it, and say no to those that don’t. If there’s too much in your life out of alignment with your purpose it makes for a very draining experience (been there!); when you can act in alignment with it, it’s energizing, uplifting, and fills you up.
It’s important to mention that purpose is not your job, nor is it your passion project, things you love to do, or what you’re good at, but it can be a part of all of those things! Rather, purpose is a reason for being lived daily through your actions, values, priorities, and boundaries, and when you’re acting in line with your purpose, you feel energized, aligned, and in flow.
Sounds great! So how do we get an understanding of our purpose?
Earlier this year I made a very difficult decision to leave engineering and start my own consulting business. One tool that helped me make that decision that I have been using for years is the Japanese concept of Ikigai.It resonated with me so much that I developed a workshop to help others use the tool, and have delivered it in a number of conferences and at my retreats.
Ikigai draws from passion, ability, stability, and service to distill down to your unique purpose. The theory is, that your purpose, or your “why”, lies at the centre of what you’re good at, what you love to do, what you’re paid for, and what the world needs.
1. What are you good at?
The “what you’re good at” quadrant seems obvious – but we’re also frequently pressured into doing things we “should” do that don’t necessarily line up with what we’re good at. Women also rarely reflect on what we’re good at! For us, understanding what we’re good at not only helps you apply that skill to achieve our purpose, it also helps us vocalize our strengths and know our worth.
So what are you good at? A great way to fill this section is to ask others – your colleagues, friends, supervisor, what are you good at? What is your superpower?
2. What you love to do?
The things that light us up, make us laugh, give us joy, energize us, are going to be part of what we are meant to do, but how many of us go to a job we don’t enjoy and daily do things that drain our energy rather than replenish it? Ask yourself, what’s something that, when immersed in it, you lose track of time? If you didn’t have to worry about money, what would you be doing?
3. What are you paid to do?
Many of us pursue our passions outside of our day jobs – but this tool recognizes that the key to finding your true purpose is acknowledging and incorporating what you get paid for – whether that’s a specific skill, ability, or service. It’s also practical, because we gotta eat – and struggling towards a purpose without the proper resources is just that – a struggle. What’s are skills that people would say about you in each job you’ve held? What are some common problems that you solve in your job?
4. What does the world need?
More and more companies are turning from value-based governance to purpose-based governance, and rooted in this is how that company is improving the lives of people around them, who they are working for.
There is always service a true calling – it’s not just about how you can do what you want to do, it’s how you can help people around you while doing it. It’s your unique gift to the world. Ask yourself, how do you like to give back? What’s a problem in the world that you’d love to fix?
Look at your answers to the four steps, where do the steps overlap for you? Is there something in your life that incorporates all of them? What choices can you make to bring more balance into your life?
In this time of mass uncertainty, stress, and fear, it’s a great time to slow down, tune in, get aware to what is really driving you in this world, and lay the foundations for life that energizes you instead of drains you.That’s resilience.
Incorporate this #ResilientRitual into your day to make time to recharge and be at your best for our colleagues, friends, and family.
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