LANE WALLACE

Likewise, just resolving to apply more mental and emotional strength in our professional lives is too big and vague a goal to be helpful. But something I always stress in talks I give about Core Strength (including the one I’m planning for the WAI conference in Denver this year) is the idea of building a compass to aid in that effort. And that is a reasonable new-year goal to start working on.

 

A compass is simply a framework or tool to help us organize and focus knowledge about ourselves and the world so it’s easier to see what choices and actions are most likely to keep us “on course.” And by “on course,” I mean on a career and life path that feels true to who we are, enables us to have a positive impact on something we care about, helps us maintain a healthy level of emotional stability, and allows us a sustainable balance of happiness and joy, even when parts of that journey are hard.

 

So how do we create that kind of tool? The first step is understanding what that compass consists of, so we see what to work on and how it all fits together. I use the concept of a compass because it helps us envision an internal navigational tool that points, reliably and steadily, toward our own sense of true north. In an actual compass, the magnetic pull of the Earth’s poles determines where the arrow points. But within ourselves, that sense of north arises from gaining clarity in other areas that end up pointing us in a specific direction.

 

This all works much better with the aid of a diagram on a whiteboard. But visualize, if you will, the four points of a compass. The north-oriented pointer gives us our heading; the choices and actions most likely to keep us on course. But those answers emerge from the information we pull from the south, east, and west quadrants.

 

South represents what we know about ourselves and the world: who we really are, and what matters most to us in our careers and lives. This is the most information-packed quadrant, and the quadrant requiring the most time and effort to build. But it’s the critical foundation of any useful or powerful compass. And, the good news is, it’s something we can work on in pieces and add to over time as we gain experience, grow, and reflect on various aspects of ourselves.

 

We build the knowledge for this critical south quadrant through exploring and questioning—both inside ourselves and in the world around us. We can start by identifying some of the expectations and assumptions we’re unconsciously making about what we need to be, do, or have in order to be “successful,” acceptable, or happy. The next step is examining and questioning those assumptions; discarding unrealistic or unhelpful ones, and identifying more accurate beliefs and more grounded goals that feel true, reasonable, and will help us be happier and less stressed. We also build our south knowledge by looking more closely at our past actions and experiences for what they tell us—not just about what truly matters to us, but also what our particular talents, strengths/weaknesses, and likes/dislikes are, and the kind of people and environments make us feel energized and motivated.

 

East and West represent the knowledge that helps us stay grounded in our choices and actions; the tempering influences that add strength to the self-awareness we’ve built in our south quadrant.

 

East represents a focus on internal, instead of external, rewards. The more we focus on elements that are internally, or intrinsically, rewarding to us, the happier and more resilient we will be. Building our east quadrant means thinking about what will give us those rewards. What choices, changes, or actions might get us closer to loving what we do or who we do it with? To our work and lives feeling meaningful? To having strong, positive personal relationships and a strong community around us? Or having a stronger feeling of autonomy or control, in our lives?  

 

West represents the work we do to go beyond self-awareness to self-acceptance; to being at peace with ourselves and our choices. That doesn’t mean having no interest in self-improvement. But it means a fundamental acceptance of ourselves, wherever we are in life, with all our human imperfections and embarrassing mistakes, even as we continue to work toward becoming better, wiser, and more evolved versions of ourselves. We build our west quadrant by working to embrace a growth mindset; reminding ourselves that we are all works in progress, that imperfection makes us unique, and that we shine not when we become perfect, but simply when we find a meaningful path that resonates with our heart and brings out our strengths and joy.

 

All three quadrants are related, so building strength in one helps us make progress with the others. For example, the more at peace we become with ourselves (west), the easier it is to let go of striving for external validation and focus instead on internal rewards (east). And the more we identify our unique strengths and characteristics (south), the easier it is to see ourselves as fundamentally okay (west).

 

As we gain the self-knowledge of the South, the self-acceptance of the West, and allow ourselves to think about and prioritize internal rewards from the East, our compass will start to work for us. If we’re trying to figure out why we’re unhappy or feel as if we need a new direction, or we’re facing a choice or fork in the road, we can hold the knowledge in our compass out in front of us, and it will point us in the direction most aligned (or in the case of unhappiness, most misaligned) with its truth. That critical knowledge we’ve organized into its mechanism gives us something concrete to evaluate our lives and choices against, allowing us to see more clearly what we need to change, or what choices are most likely to make us happy.

 

Next issue, I’ll dive a little deeper into the nuts and bolts of compass-building: specific approaches, exercises, and questions that can aid in assembling the different quadrants. But if this sounds like something that could help you, start exploring and pondering some of the questions I’ve outlined here. Any new insight is a worthwhile achievement. And keep this in mind: while it may take some time and effort to build a compass…it’s a whole lot easier than trying to stay on course without one.