Be everything you are: the path to fulfilment

“You can’t be anything you want.  But you can be everything you are.”  – Jay Shetty

I know this is controversial but hear me out.  We are led to believe that we can do anything, be successful at anything and achieve anything that we want.  To some extent, you can achieve some level of success if you work hard.  The problem is that you often end up sacrificing yourself and your soul in the process.

The ancient yogis believe that everyone has a psychophysiological nature that determines where you flourish.  Let’s call this your inclination.  Each person’s inclination towards thriving is different.  

When you work in alignment with your natural inclination, you feel alive, experience flow and are more likely to succeed with some degree of ease.

When you are not aligned with your natural inclination, you’re more likely to dislike what you do and find that it takes more effort. 

In my corporate career, as part of the talent program, the aim of which was to build future senior leaders for the organisation, I found myself leading a large national operations team. 

The theory behind the program was to rotate leaders into various roles within the organisation to become “well rounded” in readiness for further promotion.  The assumption was that you needed to be good at all types of leadership to succeed in the C-Suite.

I disliked this role and found it extremely difficult, energy draining and demotivating.  It contained very little of my natural inclinations of strategic, complex decision making and growing and developing people.

Within 4 months I realised that I had made a mistake in moving into that role.  I was incredibly fortunate that my organisation helped me to move back into a role that supported my natural inclinations.

As leaders, we need to learn about the natural inclinations of our team members.  Hiring for natural strengths that align with the role is the starting point.  This will enable your team members to thrive and do their best work.  They will experience higher levels of wellbeing, engagement and thriving.

In allocating projects, look for a natural strengths alignment with project requirements.  You will receive higher productivity, customer service and team engagement.

For yourself, in making career decisions, ask yourself  “How does this role enable me to be everything that I truly am?”

There will always be parts of a role that we dislike or that feel like incredibly hard work.  The aim is to ensure that this is the smallest part of the role or find someone for whom this is a natural strength.

 

If you’d like help understanding the natural inclinations of your team, I can help. Contact me to find out more.