Last month in our BOQ article, Living Your Values – Simplify Life and Avoid Burnout, we explored the importance of living your Values in everyday life. So, what happens when you spend every working day in an environment that is out-of-sync with your deepest values?
It can get serious, you could find yourself asking ‘why’ you get up in the morning. You may eventually reach the point of having to leave a job or a career because you can no longer tolerate the mismatch between your values and your work.
Working in accordance with the values you hold most deeply is absolutely essential to the health, happiness, and inner-harmony of anyone who is Highly Sensitive. Not doing so most often leads to stress, anxiety, illness, burnout and a multitude of emotions ranging from frustration to sadness and regret.
Work that denies your values eventually empties your soul.
It’s not always easy working and building a career that remains truthful to your values. Being value-driven requires difficult and at times unpopular choices, decisions, and directions. The corporate world is often at odds with the values of HSPs.
Business models are usually one of two types: values or bottom-line. These days bottom line thinking is by far the more popular approach. For HSPs, who are mainly value-driven, a corporate environment based solely on economics where even employees are treated like inventory feels bereft of value.
I did one of numerous ‘residencies’ in a psychiatric programme whose values (or lack of them) were completely at odds with my own. (Before you ask, I needed the hours!) Even though it was a hospital, bottom-line economics ruled. Waiting lists were ‘padded’ so funding remained intact. As for philosophy, I believe people can and will change and ‘they’ believed they would ‘always’ be sick to some degree. Let’s just say square peg-round hole!
I put in my 1,500+ hours, and ran for my life and reputation. I paid the price, my health failed, my spirit felt bruised and broken and my knees buckled under the weight of burnout. I did learn to never compromise my values in my career again. It’s actually hard to put a price on that lesson!
How do you get beyond the paycheck to value-based work?
Workplace values exist on more than one level. Value-able work isn’t only about the nature of the work. Although we all know that you can’t just ‘go shopping’ for values, when it comes to your career and work, it doesn’t hurt to have a ‘shopping list’ of absolute essentials that you can measure a company or a job against. And remember, don’t limit your list to values only related to product or service.
Ask those tough questions about equality, diversity and morality.
A company’s philosophy or mission says a lot, but values can also be expressed in how employees and customers are treated, the commitment of the company to mentoring and fostering leadership, their belief in being a good corporate citizen of the community, environment and the planet. Finding value in other aspects of your work is important since not everyone is free to up and quit a job. A value based environment can help to fill this gap.
To feel satisfied and successful in work, you have to honour the truth of your values.
It takes courage and conviction to live and work by your values. You may have to make some unpopular choices or take a less than favoured stance against the establishment. In our experience HSPs can often be the target of bullying for this very reason. They are often the ones willing to be the lone voice standing up for what is ‘right’ or legal or moral. HSPs are often the one to stand up for others who they see being treated poorly. Their willingness to take a stand can result in a bullseye on their back: being regarded as a trouble-maker, difficult to get along with, negative, argumentative, not a team-player or (love this one) a ‘drama queen’!
You know your deepest self.
You know what values are sacred to you.
As Highly Sensitive women we need to consciously make the big choice to live and work in deep connection with our values. Living in accordance with these values creates calm, stability and strength in your life, as well as helping you navigate the inevitable challenges along the way.
There will always be difficult and stressful times at work, times when you really have to dig deep. If you are clear about the values that guide your work, you will make choices from a position of integrity, truth, confidence and strength. You will make those choices without apology because you are working from a place of personal power.
Until Next Time…Grab Life by the Crown!
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