How often do you question – in your career and in life – where you’re at and what it’s all for? How often do you re-evaluate what really matters?
Last week Sarah Wilson quit her “I quit Sugar” business after growing it from a blog in 2011 to a multi-million-dollar diet and wellness movement, helping over 1.5 million people cut sugar from their diet.
“Success is a funny thing. It requires feeding. It requires growth.” “Once we arrived at the point where ‘scale’ — growing the existing structure exponentially — was required, I realised the motivator now was money”. “I’m an educator, a communicator. Not a money-spinner”.
It takes courage to stop wanting more of the success you’ve earned. It takes courage to re-evaluate where you’re at and realise that where you’re at, isn’t in line with what matters to you deep down.
Most people don’t know that they have in themselves the power to decide who they want to be. And what they want.
A friend of mine recently went for a new role offering her the responsibility and challenge in an area of work she loved and wanted to progress in. However, her new potential employer made it clear the hours would be long and involve weekend work. With two small children, she didn’t know how she could make it work. In a quandary, she exited the recruitment process, feeling like it was easier to let herself down rather than her children. Over lunch we talked about how she could create her ‘life by design’ balancing career and family, rather than one winning over the other.
Are you as happy and satisfied as you’d like to be? Are you living with integrity?
Many career and life choices come with trade-offs requiring you to stack up the respective costs and payoffs. I remember a time in my corporate career when I was running on empty. Someone commented to my boss “Toni doesn’t look happy”. The feedback was spot on. I was stressed, barely getting by and didn’t know how to break free. The costs to my health and happiness were far greater than my title or pay packet. Only I wasn’t prepared to admit it. I wasn’t living with integrity.
Knowing what is important to you is the starting point.
Philosopher Harry Frankfurt explains integrity as being fully self-integrated, free from inner-conflict and disagreement; harmonizing what you want and what you do.
To me living with integrity means living in line with your values, principles and what success looks like to you. No one else should dictate what is important to you.
Are you making the right trade-offs?
If you think about what your giving and what you’re getting in your role and career right now, do the trade-offs you’re making justify keeping things the same? What do you want your life to look like? If you were living true to your values, what would your average day look like? How is this different than your current reality?
“You are in integrity when the life you are living on the outside matches who you are on the inside.” – Alan Cohen
Bringing it all together
Ultimately, the juice in life is in the journey, not the destination. Living with integrity is a choice. Having great experiences by living your values and principles is what will make life fulfilling for you. Creating change takes courage but keeping things the same often carries greater risk. You deserve a fulfilling life. How can you create your life so that your life allows you to be the best of you? Want some help? – lets chat.
