The Benefits

Having a life plan makes one get past the distractions and focus on what matters.Set aside an hour to do this planning exercise:

• List 1: Jot down your lifetime goals, listing everything that comes to your mind.
• List 2: Ask yourself ‘How would I want to spend the next five years?’ and note down the unbiased non-judgemental answer that comes in your mind.
• List 3: Ask yourself ‘If I was to die in six months, how would I spend the time I have?’
• List 4: Finally, list your most important goals, finding the common goals and aspirations from the previous three lists.

Looking through the most important goals, find the common thread and draft a plan of action for your life, a compelling Mission Statement, taking as much time as you want. Let it sit there for a few days and do not think about it.

Review the statement after a few days, see if it carries the magic that can be a guiding torch of your life, making any changes if required.

Progress can sometimes feel like endless staircases where you climb and climb, but can never see the end.

A personal mission statement allows you to look back and see how far you've climbed.

A personal mission statement reminds you where you're coming from and puts your life in perspective. When you feel frustrated, you can go back and read how much you've progressed over a specific time.

• Read the life stories of those with leadership qualities that you admire and think about how to apply their lessons to your life.
• Analyze your key relationships regularly and resolve to live in truth with the most important people in your life.
• Keep your promises and commitments as part of your core values and leadership qualities.

1. Personal Life: refuse to say or do something that you don’t believe is right and refuse to tolerate or compromise in situations where you are unhappy with the behavior of another.
2. Financial: Casualness toward money, yours or not, brings financial casualties. Fiercely guard your credit rating, pay your bills in time and keep your word on your financial commitments.
3. Commitment To Others: Always keep your word, be trustworthy and honorable no matter the circumstances.

Knowing your personal values changes your behavior.

For instance: When you value health, you don’t have to wrestle with managing impulse control as much. If you know a particular food or activity isn’t good for your body, you don’t want it.

1. Start with a beginner’s mind, someone with no preconceived notions of what is.
2. Create your list of personal values. 
3. Chunk your personal values into related groups. 
4. Highlight the central theme of each value group. 
5. Determine your top Personal Core Values. Whittle your list down to 5 - 10 core values and rank them in order of importance.
6. Give your personal values richer context. Highlight values into memorable phrases or sentences.
   
7. Test the ecology of each value. Review your list a day later: Are they personal to you? Do you see any values that feel inconsistent?

Challenge: Expose Biases too hidden to be seen.

Innovation: An identity survey with easily visible results.

Lesson: More than one social identity is examined at the same time and allows becoming aware of issues related to diversity and privilege.

• Do not overestimate your own competency. Life experience alone is not enough to become a diversity expert.
• Broaden students’ perspective on privilege. A broad spectrum of topics that can reveal differences.

• Demonstrate authenticity — and grace. Making cultural faux pas is an opportunity for teaching and showing grace.

• Focus on solutions.  Awareness encourages motivation toward solutions.

• Decide on your mission for your quarter.
• Break mission down into objectives. 
• Draft your Key Results. Key Results are specific, timely and measurable indicators of your progress.
• Consider the purpose of each KR.
• Find an accountability partner. 
• Check in every 2–4 weeks with your partner. 

The right way to set expectations is to sit down with your employees and discuss everyone’s needs and expectations. Then come to a mutually agreed solution.

An good approach for employees to best meet expectations is to focus on “what” your desired outcome or vision is. It allows employees to feel more invested in the process toward completion.

A leadership signature: Who you are as a leader and how you view and approach the job. 

• Discover your leadership signature by asking how you lead day by day. Are you task or people focussed? 
• Ask people who work with you how they would describe your leadership.
• Consider the impact you have. Are you changing the culture? Driving results?

Sensemaking refers to the process of creating meaning out of the chaotic world around us.

We need to make sense when something in our environment seems to have changed. We collect data, learn from others, look for patterns to create a new map of the landscape. Then we experiment with new solutions to see how it will respond to this new environment.

21–35% of our life is spent at work, making it a crucial part of our lives to spend at something we find meaning in.

Meaningful work should be:

• Motivating and purposeful.
• Should be coherent and make some sense.
• Should be significant.

Meaningful work is when we feel a genuine connection with what we do for a living and our larger spectrum of life.

It is motivating, creates deep relationships and helps others.