Do you compare your inside with someone else’s outside?

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”  Carl Jung

We are brought up to ‘showcase’ our capabilities and successes on our CVs, at interviews, during our performance appraisals or even in attracting a partner. Both personal and professional social media is a plethora of carefully curated descriptions and images of people and their lives.

This provides the narrative you wish to share with the world of what you do, but does it overtly share the personal values that guide you or why you do what you do?

‘How can I do what really makes me happy?’ or ‘Why am I not happy at work?’ are questions often asked by clients. Comparing oneself to others and the image they show to the world is another common theme in coaching as that can lead to feelings of under-achievement, inadequacy or even failure.

Our values are the things that are important to us such as respect, honesty and integrity. Understanding these is key in answering these big happiness questions and asking ‘How useful is it to compare my inside with someone else’s outside?’

Values are at the core of who we are. They are our motivators, drivers and the reason why we do the things we do. So, as Carl Jung suggests, we can look outside of ourselves to dream, set goals and ambitions but if we are yet to awaken to our real selves and values, how can we align what we do with who we are? Until we do this, we cannot be truly happy and at one.

Coaching can support a client to really understand their values and appraise the extent of alignment with what they are doing personally and professionally.

Often if your core values are being conflicted or compromised, it can lead to stress and unhappiness.

This can be an individual or team coaching approach. One recent client was able to take this a step further by extending conversations about their core values with their team. In sharing what is important to each other, they deepended their understanding and found common ground about what underpinning values were key to their shared success. Relationships improved hugely as, while they did not share the exact same values, mutual respect for each other and their values increased. They all said the exercise had enhanced trust within the team.

Does this resonate? Get in touch if you would like a conversation about how coaching can help you or your team align with your values: victoria@coxenconsultandcoach.com