December 23, 2021
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During the pandemic, many of us have found ourselves in a cycle of overwhelm and anxiety in both our personal and professional lives. When things feel outside of our control, we often try to retreat into a place of seeming safety within a small, controlled comfort zone.
While this is a common coping mechanism, it actually exacerbates the feelings we’re trying to avoid. When we attempt to reduce stress by stripping our to-do lists down to only the things we know we can do well with minimal effort, we also remove worthwhile challenges and lose the resulting triumphs that fill our lives with meaning. This leaves us feeling underutilized, anxious, and hamstrung. To regain purpose and control, we need to make a 180-degree turn and seek out meaningful challenges that will pull us forward.
Overwhelm and burnout aren’t just a result of pace and pressure. For example, when I worked at Amazon and Google during the early 2000s, 80-plus-hour work weeks weren’t uncommon. I saw some employees thrive and some crumble, even though the environment, pace, opportunities, pressure, and expectations were applied consistently. I found that a major differentiator in both longevity and joy at work is value alignment.
Reminding ourselves of what we value most in our lives and careers can illuminate empowering opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed. We can actually engineer our own luck simply by knowing what we’re looking for and seeking it out. This doesn’t need to take much time, but it does need to be purposeful. Value realignment rarely happens passively.
I had a career conversation last week with a friend, David, whom I’ve known well for over 20 years. He was being recruited away from his current role as a VP of a global organization to a CEO role of a private, more narrowly focused company. It was a tough decision that only became more confusing when weighing out the differences in titles and compensation.
We took a step back and focused on the unique challenges and growth opportunities each job offered. We crafted what became a value-alignment scorecard for how he could choose his next professional challenge. This included:
The right decision become clear to him almost immediately. David decided to decline the CEO role and proactively seek out projects and challenges aligned with his values within his current company. He felt empowered and back in the driver’s seat, where previously he had felt drained and underutilized.
Whether you’re making a complete career change or want to refocus your current role on what feels most meaningful to you, pivots can feel dizzying. However, drafting a simple scorecard of what you do and don’t want can change the process into one that’s energizing and meaningful rather than daunting. To do that, focus on the three Ps: purpose, people, and pace.
Defining your life and work’s purpose can sound overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Purpose, at its core, comes down to two things: knowing whom you want to serve and empower and by what method.
A shortcut to uncovering your driving purpose can be recalling when you last ended a long day feeling energized and proud of what you had just done, even if you were still far away from the project’s finish line. This happens when the cause itself propels you forward and gives you energy rather than draining it. These moments are when you are fully value- and mission-aligned. This is your flow state.
Ask yourself: