You're the CEO of your life, not just your business so work it! You're worth it
Posted on August 08, 2019 by Caroline Stagg, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.
With a strong holistic work/life vision and a clear plan, you can STILL deliver on those New Year resolutions and personal development goals
Whether or not you hold the title ‘CEO’ at work, you are the CEO of your life. You are ultimately solely responsible for its success or failure (but in your personal life you get to decide what success and failure mean for yourself!) A lot of people depend you. There’s an awful lot riding on your shoulders.
Who are you a leader for?
Many people believe that CEOs can do whatever they want, are all powerful, and are naturally competent. Of course, this is not the case at all. CEOs need to develop many different types of skills to do their job, and all good CEOs are constantly developing personal skills such as listening, communicating, authenticity, transparency, delegation, and storytelling. CEOs are in charge of their own personal development and for getting support to develop their own leadership and that of others. They grow into their roles as any leader must. Ideally, they have role models to support them. Who can you look to?
CEOs can assign some of their duties to others but there are some things where responsibility ultimately lies solely with the CEO. The most important thing that a CEO can do at work and in their own life is create a holistic life vision.
I say ‘holistic’ because your work or business is all part of your life. So, what do you want your life to look like? In a year, three years, or five years’ time…
What does a great life look like to you – both inside and outside of work?
Getting clear on your holistic life vision is the most important thing you can do.
Why? Because it is this vision that will be the thing that motivates you along the way. And you’re going to need motivation because nothing in life changes until you do.
It’s just too easy to carry on doing the things that you already know to do; the things that are familiar, comfortable, that don’t challenge you, or make you feel uncomfortable….and then realise that, although you’ve created a fantastic and profitable business, you’re overweight, unfit, haven’t kept up any hobbies or friendships, you haven’t had a proper holiday for five years, your children have left home without ever really connecting with you and the dog won’t go near you!
Get emotional!
You’re going to have to do different things to get those different results
When you create that vision, it should be emotional – some of my clients cry when we do this work together because it is emotional to acknowledge your dreams, to say out loud what you want from life. What you want is IMPORTANT. That emotional thread is what keeps you connected to yourself. The more connected you are the easier it will be and the more motivated you will be to take the actions you need to take.
Breaking it down
You need to set clearly defined goals – perhaps for your career or business, perhaps for your retirement. Many people don’t look as far into the future as their retirement and this leads them to a fear of stopping work because they have no idea of what they would do if they didn’t go to work every day. When your work is such a large part of your life, it can be scary to think of a life without it.
Yet, as we are now living longer, this is increasingly a larger part of our lives. If we have an exciting vision of what we want to do after we stop working, it becomes a something to look forward to and be excited about. It also gives us time to plan for it financially so that it is available to us.
Start from where you are:
• What is your workload right now and over the next three months?
• What are the implications for your family, your friendships, your health?
• What small changes could you make this week and commit to sustaining over the next three months?
• Inspire yourself with what these small changes could grow into?
• What would their impact be?
• As adults, we hardly ever play, and we forget how to do it. When do you play?
Be honest with yourself and be accountable
In life, as at work, big goals need breaking down over shorter time periods for them to be strategic and possible to execute. Structures need to be put in place; critically a coach, family member or peers can support you and hold you accountable.
In this way new habits replace old and become the new ‘normal’.
You can have a life and work you love, be healthy and enjoy your friends, family and interests – you can live the dream!
