On "gravitational pulls" + other people's value systems

Here’s a life-changing question for you:  

Are you allowing yourself to get trapped in the gravitational pull of other people’s value systems?

You know, the values of:

Your colleagues

Your boss

Your college or graduate school classmates

Your mom

Your friends 

We choose our jobs based on what our business school classmates think a “good” job is. We chose our lunch based on what our mom would think was “healthy” or “reasonable.” We choose our outfits, our hair, our weekend activities, our partners, and our friends, based on someone else’s value system.

Sometimes the value system doesn’t belong to anyone we could explicitly identify. It’s just “the world.” The world says that if I don’t do my job this way, I’m a bad person! The world says that if I ask for this I’m greedy!

But: do we agree with that assessment?

Does that assessment reflect our true values?

…

The alternative, of course, is to be crystal clear on your authentic values and priorities… and live according to them.

For many of us, this feels impossible. We have no freaking clue what our values are. Or the gravitational pull of others’ values feels truly impossible to escape. Their values feel like "the truth” about life.

To which I would say:

It’s 100% possible to know your values, like your values, and live according to them.

Yep. I mean it.

You may face roadblocks, but they can almost always be addressed.

Many of us fear that addressing these roadblocks will feel like pushing enormous boulders across football fields. The truth? Far more often it is actually incremental, small shifts inside our own brains. This is at the core of much of the work I do with my 1:1 life coaching clients if it’s ever of interest. So this weekend, about any choice — small or large — you might ask yourself:

Am I choosing this based on my own values, or someone else’s?

So this weekend, about any choice — small or large — you might ask yourself: am I choosing this based on my own values, or someone else’s?

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

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One way to improve your sense of belonging - that doesn't require anyone else to do anything

Belonging is something that most of us crave.

The sense that we’re held + safe within a community that cares for us — there’s certainly nothing more primal. The lack of it, and we ache.

So often, we can feel that we need to change ourselves, mold ourselves, to a community to find that belonging. Chop ourselves down, or add bulky armor that never quite feels real.

And yet, my favorite thoughts on belonging point to a different way. In Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness, she shares a conversation between Bill Moyers and Maya Angelou, on public television in 1973:

Moyers: Do you belong anywhere?

Angelou: I haven’t yet.

Moyers: Do you belong to anyone?

Angelou: More and more. I mean, I belong to myself. I’m very proud of that. I am very much concerned about how I look at Maya. I like Maya very much. I like the humor and courage very much. And when I find myself acting in a way that isn’t…that doesn’t please me — then I have to deal with that.

This exchange, and Angelou’s wisdom, has been swirling inside of me recently. So often, we define “belonging” as something that’s about other people, about what people outside of ourselves do or do not give us.

But what if the only “belonging” that truly matter is whether you belong to yourself?

So I’ll ask: do you belong to yourself? If not, why not?

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie