What is alignment and what does it mean to be in alignment with your life? When you are living aligned with who you are, what you believe in and stand for, and how you want to live your life, you are in alignment. Leadership alignment is similar, but it has more to do with your leadership values, vision, and purpose and if they are aligned to your company, career, and other leaders in your team. When we aren’t in alignment in our life, career, or the company we work for, it can feel like a struggle as we will experience discord and dissonance. So then, how do you know if you are in alignment in your life, leadership, or career?
The video below will get you started and then continue below with a few exercises you can do to begin your own life and leadership alignment.
What is life alignment?
Many of us have experienced what it is like to have a wheel out of alignment on our bike or in our car and if not, we can all imagine what it would be like for a subway car or train to be bumped of the rails that guide it; the train would either come to a halt, feel unstable or bumpy, or even fall over to one side into a derailment. Needless to say being out of alignment slows us down or knocks us off the rails leaving us directionless for the time being until we repair it. That’s where you come in here today; yes you are the repair person who can get you back on track into alignment for your life and leadership.
Life alignment means that the life you have created around you, the lifestyle you are living, and the day to day joys in your life, align with: who you are, what you want, and how you want to live. So, are you in alignment with your life? To answer this question, you need to know and answer the three questions I highlighted above. Take a moment and assess or become aware of how you are living right now and if it is in alignment with who you are and how you want to live.
How do I live in alignment?
In order to live in alignment, you need to know what alignment would be for you. For example, some people are very driven, achievement oriented, love what they do, might be considered workaholics, but thrive in a fast paced environment with long work hours. They would be in alignment because how they are living is who they are. However, if we were to look at someone who is very bright and creative and they were stuck in a job where they were told exactly what to do with no challenge or ability to use their creativity, this person would be out of alignment. Living in alignment begins with knowing yourself including your talents and strengths, what you need to be happy, and the environment that will support the life you want to live. Below are a few key tips to help support you in leading your life alignment.
- Know and use your strengths
- Know who you are and what you want
- Explore and define how you want to live
- Let yourself dream and become clear on how you want your life to look
- Knowing what you don’t want is always a good place to start
- Remember when you felt most in the ‘flow’ or had ‘ease’ in your life
- Discover your top life values and assess if you are living them
- Compare how you are living with how you want to live
- Be honest with yourself if you feel struggle, discord, dissonance
- Open your mind to what could be and play with possibility
How do I have Leadership Alignment with my career, where or who I work for, and in my business?
Let me first start by saying what you may have heard me say before, but I have to emphasize here again, you are the leader of your life, career, business and even your leadership. No one else owns these, makes decisions on them, or is in control of them, but you. Unfortunately, so many of us give our power and leadership away to fear, scarcity, or defeat when the game is always in play and you always have the ball. Leadership alignment is lead by you, but you need to know your leadership vision, values, and purpose as well as your needs. Sometimes we lead for our needs, financial or otherwise, but the play is still in motion so what’s your next move?
Leadership alignment in your career would mean that your strengths, talents, and experience are being utilized well and you are feeling fulfilled by the work you do. Now having leadership alignment with what company you work for or who you work with is extraordinarily important not only for your happiness, but also for the team and company’s growth as well. Take a moment to assess if the company and people you work with and the leadership you work for have similar values to yours and if you are in sync with how they are leading the team and company. If there is a mismatch, it could be solved by some great communication, but it also may mean you need to find another team to work with so you can be in sync.
For all you entrepreneurs out there, we need to lead our businesses in alignment with who we are and how we want to live. If you are building a business that is 24-7 and you want more lifestyle freedom, well the alignment will be way off. We have the ability to lead our business with the offers we create, the systems we implement, and with scaling to give us the freedom of time we want to have so we can really live and not just work. When I sat down with an entrepreneur and we did their Wheel of Life, the person shared what ‘Wealth’ meant to them and their definition of wealth was freedom and specifically time freedom, but their business and money making options that were set up consumed all their time. Needless to say this entrepreneur realized they were out of alignment and started making choices around their business and income generation for time freedom. Align your business to who you are and how you want to live!
How Life Coaching Can Help you Live and Lead in Alignment for Happiness
The fact of the matter is we keep ourselves so busy, we don’t stop to assess if our life is out of alignment and we were not exactly given the tools of fall from the sky self awareness to just know what we need to live aligned. This life and leadership alignment coaching is some of the most exciting and rewarding work I do with career professionals, entrepreneurs and leaders because there are always light bulb moments that transform lives. Discovering where your alignment is with life and in leadership is quite hard to do on your own; whereas the reflection points and powerful questioning of a coach can guide your discovery and bring you to clarity.
Here’s how coaching around your life and leadership can support you to live and lead in alignment with who you are and what you want. Together we take you through a self discovery that deepens your awareness and clarifies what you need to know about yourself in order to make the right decisions for your life and career path that will bring you happiness. As a certified ICF Whole Person Life Coach, we will take you through your own Web of Life exercise and other core being exercises including strengths and archetype mindstyles.
For you career explorers and leaders, we discover your vision, purpose, and needs that would lead you to career and leadership alignment. Basically we go on a journey of exploration, discovery, and excitement just as you would planning a dream trip to where you want to travel. After that, we map it out so you know what your action steps are to be, live, and lead in alignment.
It is my belief that if anyone feels out of alignment or not in sync with how they want to live or with their leadership, that everyone should experience alignment coaching. In fact, it could be a yearly or biyearly check in to see if you are still indeed on the tracks headed in the direction you want to go.
Life alignment is all about living and leading a life that brings happiness and peace to you. Leadership alignment is having your leadership values and vision align with who you work for or with and having your own leadership align with how you want to lead your career and future forward. Now being in alignment with the truth of who you are and what you are capable of falls under leadership alignment, but it is really about self potential alignment; this is a whole other topic that many of us are limiting ourselves with including yours truly. I will be back with more on that later.
As I sign off here on why I wanted to talk with you today about alignment, it is because so many people are settling and accepting misalignment without even ever challenging it or looking at what could create more alignment and therefore happiness in their life. Also, small, gradual bumps out of alignment happen every day and sometimes we don’t see them or they seem small, but then all of a sudden, one day, they add up and we are really unhappy. Sometimes all it takes is the awareness that we are out of alignment and what our alignment needs are to get right back on track.
Do you want to explore and discover what life alignment or leadership alignment would look like for you? Would you like leadership or life alignment coaching? If so, get in touch either on my connect page where you can book a consult or email me at [email protected].
Here’s to living a life and to leadership that is so in alignment with who we are, that it feels like when we were kids again with our hands off the steering wheels of our bikes up in the air and the wind blowing through our hair!
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