Your value isn't found in your career

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In today’s episode I'm going to be addressing one of the most important topics to creating balance in your life: your value. Essentially your worth. As we become adults, we learn that our value has a lot to do with both the quality and quantity of our output – our accomplishments - but that isn’t really where our true value lies. Our value lies in something much deeper than that, and as you begin to realign your value away from your career & accomplishments, you’re going to have a much easier time creating a balanced life.

If your value isn’t found in your career and your accomplishments, where is found? In simply being you! Your value is found in the core pieces of who you are. I call this your human value. In this episode I am breaking down the difference between your accomplished value and your human value and explaining why it is important to shift the way you see your value. 

Topics in this episode:

  • Accomplished value vs human value – what’s the difference?

  • Why ambitious women tend to focus too much on our accomplished value and how it causes imbalance

  • Why you need to see yourself through the lens of your human value and what will shift when you do.

  • How working less hours is dependent on your human value

  • A helpful exercise to help your brain start to understand who you are at the core

Show Notes:

Want some help aligning your value to the core of who you are? Book a free breakthrough call and let’s begin the process of building up your confidence and human value. Schedule your call here: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book

Want some additional support to creating work-life balance? Check out the Work-Life Balance Formula, a free training where I teach you the exact equation for feeling present at home and happy at work. Click here to sign up: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.net/balanceformula

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Transcript

Intro

In today’s episode, I'm going to be addressing one of the most important topics to creating balance in your life and that is your value. Essentially it’s your worth. As we become adults we learn that our value has a lot to do with both the quality and quantity of our output – our accomplishments, but this isn’t really where your true value lies. Your value lies in something much deeper than that, and as you begin to realign your value away from your career & accomplishments you’re going to have a much easier time creating the balanced life you want. I explain it all in this episode. You ready? Let’s get to it…


Welcome to the ambitious and balanced working mom podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you’re looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home then this is the place for you. I’m your host Rebecca Olson, let’s get to it! 


Value is the foundation to balance.

Hey working moms, how are you doing today? We are going to be focusing on a topic that I find foundational to balance. And that is your value. Now, I have discovered that there are really two different types of value, there is your accomplished value and then there’s your human value. 


This is a really important concept to understand because if you believe your accomplished value and your human value are one in the same…you’re always going to work more hours than you want, you’ll have a hard time shutting your brain down at night, you’ll have a hard time saying no, you’ll care way too much about what people think, spend too much time getting something “just right”, you’ll choose to work at night and on the weekend…in other words…all these behaviors that are making you feel imbalanced are caused by your accomplished value and your human value being too close together. 


So, it makes sense that if this is where the majority of our brains are, that we feel the only option to create balance is to pull back in our career, to pull back on our ambitious goals, to pull back on all of our commitments and so forth. But with a lot of the women I work with, I ask one very important question: What percentage of their imbalance is their job (like, anyone that works this position in this company would be working this much), and what percentage is just you. Your work habits, fears, mindsets...


Usually, what I hear is 25/75. 25% of it’s their job and 75% of it’s just them. 


Take a moment and ask yourself this question. How much of your imbalance is caused by your job and how much is caused by you? 


The problem is that if you don’t fix the 75% that is you…you will just take it into the next job and then the next one….because it’s not the job that is creating the imbalance. 


That is why this is such a foundational principle to a balanced life. So, let’s dive in…


First I am going to give a quick overview of both your accomplished value and human value and then we'll talk about what it takes to separate them and I’m going to give you an exercise at the end to help you do that.


What does value really mean?

Ok. Let’s talk about value for a moment. That word, what does it even mean? Value is essentially the worth that we have given something, right, it’s the amount of worth that we have given something based on some level of measurement that we have decided. Now, if you think about money or currency - we have pennies, and quarters, and dollar bills, and 100 dollar bills, and all of those have different levels of value based on how much worth we have given to it. So, when we are talking about value here today, we are really talking about the same thing. We are talking about how much worth we are wanting to give towards something.


What is accomplished value?

Now, your accomplished value - which is where I’m going to start, is very simple, it's essentially the amount of worth that you have accumulated based on how much you've achieved in your life. It's the value that you have put out into the world or the impact that you have had because of your effort and your skills and your knowledge. Essentially this is your value because you get up every morning and do something. Another word we might use is success or achievements. Those that have a lot of accomplished value we tend to label as being more successful or as being high achievers, they've made a big impact in this world through the things that they've done.


Do you feel accomplished from ticking off your to-do list?

Your accomplished value is centered on your doings. The quantity or quality of things you get done. My client Erika is constantly needing to put her accomplished value in check. She is very driven by a to-do list, if she can squeeze in one more email or one more chore, she will. She adds things to her list that she has already accomplished just so that she feels that surge of energy that comes with checking off the list…she’s not alone out there, I know many of you are nodding your head saying “yep, that’s me too!” The problem is, it never feels like enough to Erika. She rarely feels accomplished and even when she does, she can’t allow herself to stay there very long. That’s the trap of aligning too much of your value to your accomplishments. You never feel like enough, you always go-go-go and your brain is always focused on what you DIDN’T do, instead of what you did. Ok, so that’s your accomplished value.


What is human value?

Let’s talk about your human value. Now, your human value is the worth that you have simply because you were born. My guess is when you look at your child you see a being that has an immense amount of value -  they bring life and joy and challenge and beauty and wonder not because they have accomplished or done anything in their life but simply because they were born. That's their human value. It's the essence of who we are because we exist. Everyone has human value. There is nothing you could do to lose your human value. You are uniquely and wonderfully made and have something to offer this world simply because you’re alive. You don't have to prove it to anyone because it existed before you even did anything. I want you to really sit with that concept for a moment. Your human value and your belief that you can never lose it, that everyone on this earth has something to offer, not just because they have done something or accomplished something, but just simply because they are there and their potential is there. 


How we have lost this sense of inner value.

My guess is you can already see how these two values get mixed up. Because pretty early on in our life we were told that we have to start doing something to be valuable and maybe we‘ve learned that there is a “right” and “wrong” to what we can do. We have to start doing something with our life, who we are doesn't seem to be enough anymore, we have to be taking correct action in order to be good and feel good and feel valuable and worthy. This is ingrained in us as kids and then cultivated through our culture and educational system. 


So, it makes sense that when we become adults we learn that we have to keep doing and doing things right in order to feel valuable and to feel good, to feel like we have something to offer, to feel worthy. That doing less, doing things wrong, or failing all of that means that somehow we're less valuable in this world. We imagine our worth almost like a sliding scale that moves up when we are successful and do things well and moves down when we fall behind, make mistakes or say no. 


How this affects us as women.

You can see that with this mentality we as women have a really hard time saying no, pushing back, making mistakes, we spin in indecision in order to make sure we get things right, we have a hard time asking for help, we don't put ourselves out there as much for fear of failing and what other people might think because those would all be things that would move us down the value scale. 


What it’s like when your accomplished value and human value are at the same level.

I really want to paint a clear picture for you of how when your accomplished value and your human value are one in the same it has a snowball effect of behaviors and ways of operating that are not helping you create work-life balance. It's really hard for your brain, and side note here, you’ll notice that I like to refer to our brains almost as if it's a whole ‘nother entity, because I think it feels sometimes like it’s operating outside of us and like we can't control it…ok, so it's really hard for your brain to get on board with you for example not logging back in and working after your kids go to sleep when your brain thinks that you're going to be sliding down the value scale. If it thinks you’re going to be less of a worker, that you won't be as good as your colleagues, that you won't have as much to offer or you'll be seen as less valuable. If your brain is making that connection subconsciously it's going to be really hard to not log back in. 


Or as another example, it's going to be really hard to leave work every Thursday to go see your daughter play soccer when your brain thinks that you’ll be seen as less committed (or less valuable) or overall, you will see yourself as less of a worker because you leave work early every Thursday. Is it really true that you are less of a worker? That you are less committed? That you have less value to offer the company? Of course not! You going to see your kids soccer game has nothing to do with your work or your value to your company…but you are going to have to start separating those two things in order for you to actually go and see the soccer game that you really want to see, guilt-free.


A balanced life feels more curated instead of obligatory. You control your schedule and your commitments. And in order to do that, you can’t think less of yourself when you decide to do less. 


How to separate your human value from your accomplished value.

So let's talk about that, let's talk about how you begin to separate your human value from your accomplished value so that you can actually start to balance your life. Because what happens if you try to change your ambitious/to-do list driven behaviors WITHOUT actually shifting your value first? Two things: the change doesn’t last long because you aren’t changing the core issue or it feels so uncomfortable and hard you feel like you’re forcing yourself, which just causes more drain and exhaustion, and eventually you’ll give that up too.


We have to align your values first, we have to get your brain on board with where your value truly lies and build a foundation of that first, and then begin to change your imbalanced habits and behaviors after.


So much of what we’ll talk about in the Ambitious and Balanced Working Mom podcast is going to be diving into lots of methods and strategies for doing just this, for separating your human and accomplished value so that you can begin to make more confident and balanced choices for your life, but right now I want to narrow in on one, one thing you can do: define your human value. 


A process I share with my clients to define their human values.

I want you to create an exhaustive list of who you are at the core. With my clients, I walk them through a process of defining this. We look at things like their values, identity, purpose, essentially we create a new lens for how they see themselves.  


The focus here should be more on adjectives to describe yourself versus accomplishments or successes. So your list is going to have words like determined, focused, team player, patient, listener, driven, ideator, good at problem-solving...


If you're having trouble getting started try answering this question: what makes me good at my job? And what makes me a good mom? When you answer these it isn't about listing job duties that you do or responsibilities that you have, you're thinking about the way that you will go about your duties and responsibilities that is unique to you - that makes you good at it.  


As is the case whenever we're shifting a thought process or a mindset, ultimately this takes repetition and time. This isn't a one-and-done kind of exercise, this is a shift in the way you think about yourself. It would be more effective for you to spend 5 minutes a day thinking about this than it would 30 minutes one day a week. We want to push your brain to start seeing yourself in a different light and the more often you can do that faster it will happen. It's about consistency more than quantity.


Alright ambitious and working moms, that's what I have for you today. I get so excited talking about human value with my clients. If this is something that resonates with you and you know that so much of who you are and your identity is just wrapped up in your doings, and your career, and what you accomplished, and you want some help guiding you through this process of really re-aligning your value and seeing yourself through a whole new light so you can actually make lasting change, then I encourage you to book a free breakthrough call with me. This is going to be a chance to really dive deep into the core of who you are and really begin that process of building that foundation today in this call. So, I will link to that in the show notes on how you can book a free breakthrough call with me and begin that process of coaching together. 


And also don’t forget to check out the balance formula which is a training that breaks down all of the various pieces of what it takes to create a balance in your life - I will put that in the show notes as well. And working moms, I can not wait to talk to you next week. Alright, let's get to it. 

Rebecca Olson