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The People Who Fuel Your Passions

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Who are the people who fuel your passions—the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time? For me, there are so many.

There are five different types of such people:

  1. passion igniters
  2. passion inspirations
  3. passion pals
  4. passion partners
  5. passion enablers

(And read on to the end for one other important type…)

 

1. Passion Igniters

Your passion igniters are the people who set your passions ablaze in your life. Here are some examples:

For me, I fell in love with soccer in part due to a fiery and intense coach, John Goetz, who led our “Choppers” youth soccer team with gusto.

As the sweeper, I was the final line of defense before the goalie. If a long pass slipped through at half-field on a counterattack and their forward got behind me on a breakaway, I had a brief window to recover before my mark could take a shot. Sprinting at full speed to catch the opposing striker, I would always hear a booming call from Coach on the sidelines:

YEEEEEHAAAAAW!!!

You could hear it for miles. He knew I wouldn’t let the forward get a shot off.

That primal roar always sent a jolt coursing through me. I always found another gear when I heard it.

When I started learning to play the guitar, I had a hard time connecting with the lessons from my first music teacher. Eventually, I found a new teacher, Randy. He offered to teach me anything I wanted to learn. I’d bring him tapes and he’d show me how to rock out on all my favorite songs. That made all the difference. I was all in.

When I was in college, I discovered a passion for learning—and asking the big questions in life—thanks to brilliant teachers like Professor Roth and Professor Smith. Those fires are still burning in me, as bright as ever.

Alexandra, our oldest daughter, discovered a love for dancing when she joined a local dance group led by a talented and committed young dancer, Isabel. With her dance troupe, Isabel focused on spreading the joy of dancing and building community. They work with hundreds of dancers, from young children to young adults, and welcome them into Isabel’s giant and growing dance family. All the dancers perform on stage during their shows, with electrifying music, soaring choreography, and marvelous dancing. I’ll never forget when Alex had her breakthrough moment on stage. Isabel is a passion igniter.

Our other daughter, Anya, fell in love with animals, not just because she loves our own pets, but because her Mom grew up on a farm riding horses. Growing up, Anya spent a lot of time on the farm enjoying the countryside and the companionship of animals. Today, she’s considering a career working with animals.

My brother, Scott, loves to travel. If there’s a fun festival somewhere, anywhere, he’s game. He traces this back to all the postcards we got as children from our parents as they traveled around the world for our Dad’s business career. Scott was intrigued by all the foreign and exotic places. He lived in Japan for several years and now travels abroad often.

My friend, Christine, is a passion igniter for the young women rugby players she coaches, helping them not only discover a love of the game but also of strength and physicality.

Who are your passion igniters?

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2. Passion Inspirations

Your passion inspirations are the people who made you feel that you wanted to explore or do something that you care about deeply. They breathed life into your passions through their example. In many cases, they’re famous.

I love to write. For me, Richard Bach, Paulo Coelho, Annie Dillard, Anna Quindlen, Fredrik Backman, Stephen R. Covey, Parker Palmer, Richard Leider, and Brene Brown have been passion inspirations over the years.

On the leadership front, my Dad was deeply inspired early in his career by Robert Greenleaf, a consultant and author who founded the modern servant leadership movement. It transformed my father’s whole approach to leading and sent him on a quest to find better ways to lead than the ones he experienced as an emerging leader.

If you’re committed to public service and social justice, your passion inspirations may be people like Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Malala Yousafzai, or Alexei Navalny.

A budding entrepreneur? Maybe Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Ratan Tata, Jack Ma, Oprah, Arianna Huffington, Lori Greiner, or Sara Blakeley inspire you.

For animals and the natural world, maybe it’s Jane Goodall or Sir David Attenborough.

And for acting and performing arts, maybe it’s Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Lin-Manuel Miranda, or Cynthia Erivo.

Who are your passion inspirations?

 

3. Passion Pals

Your passion pals are the friends you engage with on your passions, spending time together on the things that light you up.

For me in music, it was my band mates, with countless hours of practice in Patrick’s basement and Rob’s garage. These days, I geek out about books and podcasts with my friend Jamie and my Dad.

Do you have a workout buddy or hiking companion? A movie buff or gaming buddy? How about a foodie who samples new restaurants and dishes with you?

Who are your passion pals?

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Find Your Passion

 

4. Passion Partners

Your passion partners are the people you collaborate with on passion projects, whether it’s a YouTube channel, photography, genealogy, pottery, or gardening. It can be romantic partners or business partners or both.

My friend Christopher Gergen and I were passion partners in writing a book, LIFE Entrepreneurs, together and building a company around it that helped people live with purpose and passion. In our research for the book, we interviewed 55 people who live intentionally and craft their lives around their passions, strengths, and values. In those interviews, we came across a wonderful surprise: many couples were helping each other do that.

For Paul, that mean supporting his new wife, Simi, as she launched a law firm and started a documentary project. And for Simi, it meant supporting Paul as he launched his new business. As Paul told me:

“This is so great. We’re helping each other with our dreams.”

For Linda and Roger, it meant co-founding a child-care company and launching and running humanitarian relief organizations in Asia and Africa. “For us it has been great,” recounted Linda. “We are extremely compatible. We have an enormous amount of respect for each other, and it adds this extra dimension to our relationship. It’s just incredibly rich to create an organization together.… Through all the very difficult start-up years, we had each other to lean on and celebrate our successes together.… It has really just worked.”

My Dad and I were passion partners on a book project about the kind of leadership it takes to build an organization that’s excellent, ethical, and enduring—what we called “triple crown leadership.” That work led to more writing as well as teaching and speaking together—a true joy.

Gregg with partners and co-authors, Christopher Gergen and Bob Vanourek

Who are your passion partners?

 

5. Passion Enablers

Your passion enablers are the ones who give you the means or the opportunity to do the things you love.

For me, it begins with my Mom and Dad. I think back to all the times my Mom drove me to practices, games, lessons, and events. And the times she served as Class Mom or Team Mom or ran the Little League Snack Shack.

Hanging out with my parents at a cafe

It’s also been my wife, Kristina, standing by me as I navigate my unconventional portfolio of work that includes writing, teaching, speaking, and coaching. And I supported her as she went back to school and changed careers, following her heart into work she loves and that she’s great at.

These passion enablers can include not only parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, and uncles but also managers and colleagues.

Think about the marketing manager who notices that one of her team members loves designing social media graphics and visually rich campaigns but struggles with drafting content. The manager lines up training and small projects to foster this more specialized work.

Consider the astute boss who sees how passionate his direct report is about sustainability and conservation. The boss sponsors and mentors his employee in launching company service initiatives and sees how he not only lights up but also develops his planning, collaboration, and leadership skills.

Who are your passion enablers?

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

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One More Type: Passion Killers

Unfortunately, there’s one more type: the passion killers. These are the folks who discourage you from pursuing your passions.

They insist you’re not qualified. That you’re not the sort of person who can lead that big project. They tell you how impractical it is and how you should wise up and play it safe. Often, they’re afraid you’ll struggle and fail if you take risks—or more concerned about how your choices reflect back on them. (This can lead you into the trap of living someone else’s life.)

The voices of the passion killers tend to spawn the most insidious passion killer of all: self-doubt.

Self-doubt makes you question your capabilities and potential. It feeds on your uncertainty about yourself and your place in the world. It jumps all over you when you make a mistake or don’t reach a goal. It’s that voice in your head:

Don’t be a fool!
What if you make a mistake?
What will people think?

 

Conclusion

To some, passion sounds like pie-in-the-sky dreaming. Or unattainable. Part of the problem is due to fuzzy thinking. For instance: No, you probably don’t have just one passion. And no, everything won’t turn into butterflies and rainbows if you just “follow your passion.”

Passions are potent, especially when you pair them with your strengths. That gets you a big step closer to authentic alignment—when you’re being true to yourself and there’s a good fit between how you live and who you really are.

Passion is a critical component of this equation. Author Sir Ken Robinson calls it “the driver of achievement in all fields.” And Oprah Winfrey views it as energy, noting you can gain power by focusing on what excites you.

So, if you have people who have fueled your passion, be sure to reach out and thank them. And if you can play that role for others, I hope you step into it with gusto, realizing what a gift that can be.

If you have passion killers in your life, I hope you separate yourself from them—or at least draw healthy boundaries. Life is too short not to feel this amazing energy and see where it takes you.

Wishing you well with it. Let me know if I can help.
–Gregg

 

Reflection & Action Questions

  1. Do you have any passion igniters who have set your passions ablaze in your life?
  2. How about passion inspirations who have breathed life into your passions through their example?
  3. Do you have passion pals who you engage with on your passions?
  4. How about passion partners who you collaborate with on passion projects?
  5. Do you have passion enablers who give you the means or the opportunity to do the things you love doing?
  6. Have you thanked them? Why not reach out—today?
  7. How about passion killers who discourage you from pursuing your passions?
  8. What will you do about them?

 

Tools for You

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Find Your Passion

 

Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Passions

  • “Allow yourself to be silently guided by that which you love the most.” -Rumi, 13th century poet and Sufi mystic
  • “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.” -Steve Jobs, co-founder, Apple
  • “If there is any difference between you and me, it may simply be that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is the best advice I can give you.” -Warren Buffett, legendary investor

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Problem with Not Having Boundaries

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How well have you been setting boundaries lately? Have you been proactively defining how others should treat you? How about establishing limits for yourself that you commit to respecting? Are you clear on what you’re willing to accept or tolerate—and consistent in enforcing it?

Having boundaries is essential for both your personal and professional wellbeing. Boundaries serve to protect you, enhance your wellbeing, and provide a sense of control over your life.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy—at least not for most of us. Setting and maintaining boundaries can be difficult because it often requires saying no, risking conflict, or disappointing others. This is a problem at work, among managers and workers, in relationships (from parents and children to couples), and in many other settings.

According to a 2022 survey, 58% Americans have trouble saying “no” to others. While this is an issue for both men and women, it was women who reported struggling with it more: 65% of women versus 49% of men admitted to struggling with this. (1) My work with people in different countries leads me to believe that this is a universal struggle.

 

The Problem with Not Having Boundaries

Here’s the problem: Not having or maintaining boundaries can lead to many negative consequences for you. (2) Here are ten problems with not having boundaries:

1. Negative emotions. When you don’t have boundaries, it can cause you anxiety, overwhelm, frustration, resentment, and other forms of emotional distress. It can harm your mental health.

2. Overcommitment and a sense of “time poverty.” Do you often feel that you have too many things to do and not enough time to do them?

3. Overwork or workaholism. Without clear boundaries, you may struggle to say no, take on excessive responsibilities, and feel pressured to always be available.

Take the Traps Test

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4. Exhaustion and burnout. Without boundaries, constant demands and lack of rest can drain your energy. Are you feeling not only fatigued but depleted? Like you have little or nothing left to give?

5. Numbing behaviors. Are you falling into the habit of escaping from your thoughts and feelings by doing other things like binge-watching, doom-scrolling, shopping recklessly, or eating mindlessly?

6. Difficulty making decisions. If you’re so focused on meeting other people’s needs, how can you decide what’s best for you, much less prioritize it?

7. Lower self-esteem. Without boundaries, you may place others’ needs over your own, leading to feelings of being undervalued.

“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated.”
-Brené Brown, researcher and author

8. Strained or unhealthy relationships. It’s hard to have healthy relationships when your needs or expectations are unclear.

9. Higher potential for people to manipulate or take advantage of you. Without proper boundaries, others may exploit your willingness to accommodate them.

10. Losing yourself of self and your control over your life. When you constantly prioritize others’ expectations over your own needs and desires, you might disappear from the picture or at least fade into the background.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Take the Assessment

 

Conclusion

If you struggle with setting and maintaining boundaries, like so many of us do, you might try reframing them: by setting and enforcing boundaries, you create space for what you truly want and need.

Having boundaries frees up your time and energy to live the life you want.

Finally, setting and maintaining boundaries is a continuous process. The issue of boundaries will keep coming up repeatedly in your life and work. Better to face the situation and improve it now.

Handling boundaries well requires ongoing judgment to determine when to stay firm and when to allow flexibility, adjusting as new circumstances arise.

Wishing you well with it. Let me know if I can help.
–Gregg

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Which boundaries have you struggled with?
  2. Why do you think that is?
  3. Is there a pattern involving certain people or situations?
  4. What more will you do to set and maintain healthy boundaries for yourself, starting today?

 

Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Take the Exercise

 

Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Boundaries

  • “Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by deciding what you will and won’t accept.” –Anna Taylor, author
  • “Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do.” –Rachel Wolchin, author
  • “Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” -Josh Billings, American humorist
  • “Setting boundaries is a way of caring for myself. It doesn’t make me mean, selfish, or uncaring (just) because I don’t do things your way.” –Christine Morgan, psychotherapist

 

References

(1) Source: Thriving Center of Psychology October 2022 survey of 1,001 people

(2) As you navigate this process, it’s important to recall that people have diverse needs and will make varying—sometimes vastly different—choices about their boundaries. What works for others may not suit you at all. Therefore, you must set your own boundaries while also supporting others in setting theirs.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

How to Practice Acceptance When Things Are Tough

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These days, you may be feeling anxious or concerned. It’s no wonder, given how much uncertainty and strife we’re seeing regularly.

What’s on your mind? Is it concern about high prices or worry about trade wars? Political polarization and social divides? Immigration concerns? Misinformation and disinformation? Or mass shootings, mental health concerns, social justice issues, climate change? Extreme weather events like wildfires and hurricanes?

Last year, 77% of U.S. adults indicated the future of their nation as a significant source of stress in their lives, and 73% indicated the economy as such. The overall average level of stress among Americans in 2024 was 5 out of 10. Source: American Psychological Association’s Stress in America 2024 poll. (1)

Around the world, people are most concerned about inflation, crime and violence, poverty and social inequality, unemployment, and financial/political corruption, according to the What Worries the World survey 2024. (2)

“Most people today live in relatively constant distress and anxiety.”
-Shirzad Chamine, Positive Intelligence

No doubt, there’s plenty to be concerned about. But is your reaction to things helping in any way, or just making you miserable?

 

Radical Acceptance

A powerful way to break this downward spiral is through “radical acceptance,” which has been defined as “fully acknowledging reality as it is, without resistance or judgment.”

When practicing this form of acceptance, you focus on what you can control and let go of what you can’t.

“Acceptance means events can make it through you without resistance.”
-Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Accepting reality as it is can prevent you from prolonging emotional reactions that only worsen the situation. By practicing radical acceptance, you can enhance your ability to handle distress. Essentially, you’re preventing your pain from turning into unnecessary suffering.

Of course, it’s easier said than done. Truth be told, it can be very challenging in practice, in part because of the way our brains are wired.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

What Acceptance Isn’t

In this context, acceptance isn’t the same as avoidance, complacency, settling, or inaction. It doesn’t mean that you throw up your arms and become passive. And no, you shouldn’t put your head in the sand or fiddle while Rome burns.

In life, action is essential. And you’ll still fight to uphold your values and honor your commitments.

But acceptance means that you’ll stop resisting reality. It means that you’ll focus on having a productive, compassionate, and nonjudgmental mindset. Why? Because it will benefit you and those around you.

 

Why You Should Practice Acceptance

Practicing acceptance can help you in many ways. For example, it has benefits on your:

  • mental and physical health (including your sleep quality and cardiovascular, digestive, and immune systems)
  • relationships
  • anxiety management
  • communication, coping, and problem-solving skills
  • conflict management
  • performance
  • wellbeing
  • happiness
“There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect and messy life.”
-Tara Brach, psychologist, author, and meditation teacher

 

How to Practice Radical Acceptance

How does this work in practice? And how can you apply it, even when things are difficult?

Here are practical steps you can take to practice radical acceptance:

1. Focus on being an observer, not a judge or victim. See things as they are. Stop resisting reality, realizing that it’s futile to do so.

2. Remind yourself that you can’t always change your current reality. And that’s okay. It is what it is.

3. Notice when you’re resisting reality. Common clues include troubling emotions like irritability or resentment. Focus on letting go of that resistance—and your desire for control.

4. Look for patterns or circumstances in which you keep falling into this trap. Pay attention to what you resist and what causes you grief. For example, are you:

  • getting triggered by following the news too closely and letting it cloud your days, or by checking your social media accounts too often
  • avoiding conflict, hoping it will go away on its own
  • getting triggered by someone who annoys you
  • unrealistically expecting your boss to change his or her behavior
  • resisting responsibility by blaming others
  • avoiding the reality that you’re staying in a mediocre or unfulfilling job
  • not facing up to your health challenges or ignoring the need for diet and lifestyle changes

5. Live in the present moment. Let go of worries of the past and doubts about the future. Your life is right here, right now. You can’t change the past (although you can change how you view it). And much of what’s to come in the future is beyond your control. That’s okay. Focus on doing your best and acting rightly in the moment. That will set you up for your best chances of success.

6. Practice relaxation techniques such as meditation, deep breathing, or journaling (if it helps you). These practices can help you accept reality as it is with your whole self, including mind, body, and spirit.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Take the Assessment

 

7. Allow uncomfortable emotions like frustration, disappointment, and sadness to arise within you. Avoid the temptation to resist or numb them. Doing so will only allow them to linger longer. Emotions are natural and unavoidable. You can’t stop them from arising. They generally last for only about 90 seconds, on average. If you don’t resist them, they’ll pass through you naturally. But if you do resist them, they’ll linger and keep reappearing. According to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist and author: (3)

“When a person has a reaction to something in their environment, there’s a 90-second chemical process that happens in the body; after that, any remaining emotional response is just the person choosing to stay in that emotional loop.
Something happens in the external world, and chemicals are flushed through your body which puts it on full alert. For those chemicals to totally flush out of the body, it takes less than 90 seconds. This means that for 90 seconds you can watch the process happening, you can feel it happening, and then you can watch it go away.
After that, if you continue to feel fear, anger, and so on, you need to look at the thoughts that you’re thinking that are re-stimulating the circuitry that is resulting in you having this physiological reaction, over and over again.”

8. Direct your energy and attention to things you can control and what you’re grateful for. Avoid ruminating on what’s upsetting you and negative judgments about yourself and others. Acknowledge what you can’t control, knowing that resisting it will only cause you anxiety or suffering.

9. Reframe negative events. For example, think about all your skills and capabilities in overcoming challenges and all the times you’ve survived difficult things and been resilient. Consider that there may be valuable lessons or opportunities for growth in your adversity. (See my article, “The Power of Reframing to Change Our Outlook.”)

10. When you face challenging situations, focus only on being effective in addressing them. The alternative is being reactive, hurt, or wounded—none of which will help you with anything. To the contrary.

“You can’t control how you feel. But you can always choose how you act.”
-Mel Robbins, The 5 Second Rule

11. Focus on your own mindset and actions. Stop expecting others to change or act according to your wishes or expectations.

“The greatest catalyst for change in a relationship is complete acceptance of your partner as he or she is,
without needing to judge or change them in any way.”
-Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

12. Consider whether your expectations are realistic and appropriate. Or are they setting you up for disappointment? For example, if you’re always expecting good things to happen to you, you may be inviting frustration and disappointment, because life always comes with ups and downs.

13. Remember that life can be okay—or even precious and rich—even when you’re feeling pain or discomfort. Try to place your current challenges or concerns in context and maintain perspective.

14. Don’t go it alone. Lean on your support system and recall that we’re all in this together.

15. Pray for greater acceptance. Keep the Serenity Prayer close by and refer to it often. Better yet, memorize it. (I have a copy of it hanging on my office wall.) It can help you avoid falling into bad habits and unproductive mindsets.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”
-the “Serenity Prayer”
The Serenity Prayer
The Serenity Prayer

16. Practice these acceptance techniques over and over again. Acceptance isn’t just a decision. It’s also a mindset and a practice. You want it to become more automatic and habitual, and thus easier over time. Eventually, it will become a part of who you are and how to carry yourself in the world.

In the end, there’s hope, faith, strength, and resilience in this form of acceptance. You can stand in the storm and choose not to spiral down, even when things are hard. And you can soldier on without surrendering your spirit.

Wishing you well with it—and let me know if I can help.
–Gregg

 

Tools for You

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Take the Exercise

 

Related Articles & Resources

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Acceptance

  • “All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is.” -Byron Katie, Loving What Is: Four Questions that Can Change Your Life
  • “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral, which always is as it is…. When you live in complete acceptance of what is, that is the end of all drama in your life.” –Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now
  • “Radical Acceptance is the gateway to healing wounds and spiritual transformation. When we can meet our experience with Radical Acceptance, we discover the wholeness, wisdom and love that are our deepest nature…. The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” -Tara Brach, psychologist, author, and meditation teacher
  • “One of the most amazing things you will ever realize is that the moment in front of you is not bothering you—you are bothering yourself about the moment in front of you.” –Michael Singer, Living Untethered
  • “The pain you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity.” -Eckhart Tolle, author and spiritual teacher
  • “Life is not the way it’s supposed to be, it’s the way it is. The way you cope with that is what makes the difference.” -Virginia Satir, author, clinical social worker, and psychotherapist
  • “Accepting people as they are has the miraculous effect of helping them improve. Acceptance doesn’t prohibit growth; rather, it fosters it.” –Marianne Williamson, spiritual teacher and author

 

References

(1) The Harris Poll conducted the Stress in America 2024 survey online on behalf of the American Psychological Association in August 2024, with a nationally representative sample of 3,305 U.S. adults ages 18 and older. Also, 41% of U.S. adults reported that the state of the nation has made them consider moving to another country, 32% reported that the political climate has caused strain in their family, and 30% said they limit their time with family due to a difference in values.

(2) Source: The What Worries the World survey involved monthly samples of a panel of more than 20,000 adults in 29 countries. They’ve conducted the survey for more than a decade.

(3) Verduyn, P., & Lavrijsen, S. (2015). Which emotions last longest and why: The role of event importance and rumination. Motivation and Emotion, 39(1), 119–127. “Some emotions last longer than others…. some emotions have been found to persist for a long time whereas others tend to quickly fade away.” The researchers here investigated the duration of emotional experience, distinguishing it from mood. The participants were 233 high school students, with a mean age of 17.02 years. Researchers asked them to complete questionnaires on their experience with several emotions. The researchers noted several limitations of the study, including the possibility of retrospective bias (since students reported emotional episodes from the past) and the fact that it only included high school students.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

Join our rapidly growing community. Sign up now and get monthly inspirations (new articles, opportunities, and resources). Welcome!

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Unlock the Power of Progress

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You probably have aspirations, and you know that to accomplish them you need to apply yourself and get going on relevant work. But you may also be looking, even if subconsciously, for a Hollywood-style breakthrough. A Eureka moment.

And that’s holding you back.

Researcher and Harvard Business School Professor Teresa Amabile and her colleagues, including researcher Steven Kramer, spent nearly 15 years studying the psychological experiences and performance of people doing complex and creative work in organizations. They looked into workers’ emotions, moods, motivation levels, and perceptions of their work environment. The researchers studied what work they did and what events stood out for them. Their aim was to find what contributed most to the highest levels of creative output. (1)

Enter the “progress principle.”

 

Leveraging the Progress Principle

Question:

What sets your best days—your most productive, engaging, and fun ones—apart from your worst days?

When the researchers compared the best days of the workers with their worst days (specifically, their motivation levels, overall mood, and specific emotions), they found that progress in the work was the most common event triggering the best days. And relatedly, setbacks in the work were the most common event summoning the worst days.

Importantly, even minor progress on things could result in outsized positive effects. They found a clear “inner work life effect” related to progress and small wins.

The researchers could see workers enter a “progress loop,” with consistent progress on meaningful work creating a positive inner work life, which in turn drives performance.

“Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run. Whether they are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress—even a small win—can make all the difference in how they feel and perform.”
-Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, “The Power of Small Wins”

 

The Progress Principle in Action

Working on a big, important project with a tight deadline? If you’re in a company, maybe it’s a product launch, marketing campaign, or a system upgrade. In a nonprofit, maybe it’s a fundraising campaign, big event, or recruitment drive. Or in a school district, maybe it’s a curriculum overhaul, technology integration, or implementation of safety protocols. In a government agency, maybe it’s a public health initiative or disaster recovery program. Maybe you’re working on a career change or writing a book.

Tip: Stop stressing over the deadline and focusing only on the final outcome. Instead, break the project into smaller tasks (e.g., researching, outlining, drafting, editing, presenting, improving, releasing, promoting). And when you complete a task, celebrate your progress.

Share updates with your colleagues. Feel the sense of achievement and watch how it motivates you to keep going while also helping you navigate setbacks.

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Implication for Managers: The Power of Progress in Action

How does this work for managers? Amabile and her associates found that facilitating progress, even including small wins, is the best way to motivate people on a daily basis

“The key to motivating performance is supporting progress in meaningful work.”
-Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, “The Power of Small Wins”

Unfortunately, the managers they surveyed didn’t view that as high on their list of motivational tools. On the contrary: it was at the bottom of their list.

So, what can you do as a manager to boost motivation and create the conditions for productive, creative output by your team?

First, you can use what the researchers called “catalysts” and “nourishers.”

  • Catalysts are actions you take to support the work of your team. For example: setting clear goals, giving workers autonomy, providing adequate resources and time, helping, fostering the free exchange of ideas, facilitating learning from challenges and successes, and tracking and celebrating progress.
  • Nourishers are acts of support. For example: providing encouragement, emotional comfort, recognition, and respect. Helping people feel a sense of affiliation and belonging.

On the flipside, you can minimize what the researchers called “inhibitors” and “toxins.”

  • Inhibitors can range from not providing support (or enough of it) to your team to actually interfering with their work. As management guru Peter Drucker once wrote, “Most of what we call management consists of making it hard for people to get their work done.”
  • Toxins are things like discouragement, disregard for people’s emotions, and disrespect.

These inhibitors and toxins lead to negative feedback loops—the reverse of the progress loop. They destroy motivation and productivity.

Of course, even good managers can sometimes fall short with their behavior, not least because they’re overwhelmed and under pressure.

 

Managing Setbacks

You’re bound to experience challenges in your work sometimes. As a manager, it’s essential that you manage setbacks in your team proactively.

Amabile and her colleagues found that “Small losses or setbacks can have an extremely negative effect on inner work life.” Indeed, negative events can have a more powerful impact than positive events. So, managers are wise to address frictions, hassles, and setbacks directly and quickly—and to view this as an essential part of their job.

“If you want to foster great inner work life, focus first on eliminating the obstacles that cause setbacks. Why? Because one setback has more power to sway inner work life than one progress incident.” -Teresa Amabile, The Progress Principle

In business schools and management books, the focus is on managing people and organizations. Seems like it makes sense, but this research points to an important reframe:

When you focus on managing progress, you’re better able to manage people—and even teams and organizations.
“…the most important implication of the progress principle is this: By supporting people and their daily progress in meaningful work, managers improve not only the inner work lives of their employees but also the organization’s long-term performance, which enhances inner work life even more…. Knowing what serves to catalyze and nourish progress—and what does the opposite—turns out to be the key to effectively managing people and their work.”
-Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, “The Power of Small Wins”

Leadership Derailers Assessment

Take this assessment to identify what’s inhibiting your leadership effectiveness. A critical and often overlooked tool for your leadership development.

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The Power of Momentum

This research resonates with the concept of momentum in physics, which is “mass in motion” (the product of the mass of something and its velocity). Think of a big 18-wheeler barreling down the highway. Massive momentum.

Some key points about momentum:

Gaining momentum through consistent, purposeful action fuels motivation, while procrastination slows momentum and saps motivation.

Ask yourself this:

What can you do now to build momentum toward something that matters?

If you have goals you want to achieve and a clear vision of a successful future you’re moving toward, are you taking enough action now and every day to create and build momentum toward your desired ends?

 

The Flywheel Effect

Author Jim Collins famously described this as a “flywheel” in his book, Good to Great.

He described a massive metal disk, weighing thousands of pounds, mounted on an axle. Naturally, it takes great effort to get it to move at first. But if you keep pushing consistently, it begins to move, ever so slowly. Then a bit faster. At some point, after disciplined work and sweat equity over time, there’s a breakthrough:

“The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn… whoosh!… its own heavy weight working for you. You’re pushing no harder than during the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort.”

 Eventually, you generate an “almost unstoppable momentum.” The flywheel effect.

“Each turn builds upon previous work as you make a series of good decisions, supremely well executed, that compound one upon another. This is how you build greatness.” -Jim Collins, Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great
Source: Jim Collins, “Good to Great”

Collins notes that the good-to-great transformations in their massive research set didn’t happen in one fell swoop with a single grand program, defining action, or miracle moment. Instead, it took a quiet, deliberate, and cumulative process. Turning the flywheel.

Collins describes it as an organic evolutionary process, a pattern of buildup via an accumulation of consistent steps. The pattern: “disciplined people, disciplined thought, disciplined action.” He cites executives in their own words from the companies they studied:

  • “a series of incremental changes”
  • “an evolution”
  • “very deliberate”
  • “evolutionary… building success upon success”

For this kind of business success, effort and action alone aren’t enough. According to Collins, it also requires “an underlying, compelling logic of momentum.” One might say it’s a powerful combination of a powerful business model with an effective strategy that’s well executed consistently over time. When it works right, he says that doing A almost inevitably leads to B, which inexorably leads to C and then D in a reinforcing loop. Round and round the flywheel.

For it to work, you must discover what your flywheel is in your current context (e.g., market and industry conditions). You don’t have to be a pioneer, first mover, or even unique to make it work. But you do need a clear and deep understanding of your flywheel, along with supreme execution of it over a lengthy period of time.

The flipside of the flywheel effect is what he calls the “doom loop.” It’s when organizations start with one thing, then stop and change course. They lurch back and forth impatiently, perhaps even desperately, seeking the big breakthrough that never comes. It leads only to decline and frustration.

Source: Jim Collins, “Good to Great”

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

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The Power of Compounding

These principles and practices of progress, momentum, and flywheels have echoes in the financial world, with the phenomenon of compounding and compound interest: Savvy savers earn interest both on the money they save and on the interest they earn. Over time, such compounding can lead to spectacular results—huge rewards for wise, patient, and disciplined savers.

Benjamin Franklin noted this centuries ago:

“Money makes money. And the money that money makes, makes money.”

The phenomenon is so powerful that it’s been called “the eighth wonder of the world,” a quotation often attributed to Albert Einstein.

“Enjoy the magic of compounding returns. Even modest investments made in one’s early 20s are likely to grow to staggering amounts over the course of an investment lifetime.” -John C. Bogle, investor and philanthropist
Source: Wikipedia

 

Conclusion

There are many benefits that come from using the progress principle and its related practices. The advantages include greater motivation, effectiveness, satisfaction, resilience, and confidence. And big results.

It’s also an antidote to the common traps of overthinking, worrying, and rumination—as well as indecision and inertia.

Unlocking the power of progress and small wins can lead to big changes. Why not get started with it, today?

Wishing you well with it.
-Gregg

 

Reflection & Action Questions

  1. Are you leveraging the progress principle in your life and work?
  2. Are you managing your setbacks proactively?
  3. Have you discovered the flywheel that will generate powerful momentum for you?
  4. What more will you do on these fronts, starting today?

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles & Resources

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Progress and Small Wins

  • “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” -Robert J. Collier, publisher
  • “You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.” -Brian Tracy, author and speaker
  • “Tiny victories are like gems scattered on your journey, notice them.” -Emma Xu
  • “The great victory, which appears so simple today, was the result of a series of small victories that went unnoticed.” -Paulo Coelho, Brazilian novelist
  • “’the progress principle’: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them.” -Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis
  • “Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.” -Charles Duhigg, author
  • “Track your small wins to motivate big accomplishments.” -Teresa Amabile, researcher
  • “The most effective form of motivation is progress. When we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become more motivated to continue down that path. In this way, habit tracking can have an addictive effect on motivation. Each small win feeds your desire.” -James Clear, author

(1) Their research methodology included end-of-day email surveys sent to 26 project teams from seven companies, comprising 12,000 diary entries from 238 people. (Source: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, “The Power of Small Wins,” Harvard Business Review, May 2011.) The idea behind the progress principle and small wins has resonance with other ideas and frameworks, including agile software development (which often includes breaking product development work into small increments, including sprints and rapid iterations) and innovation approaches like lean startup methodology, including its focus on “minimum viable products.” Entrepreneur and author Peter Sims advocates making “little bets.”

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Avoid These New Year’s Resolution Pitfalls

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New year’s resolutions are famously difficult to achieve. So much so that they’re the butt of jokes.

“May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions.”
-Joey Adams, comedian

It would be funnier if the stakes weren’t so high. If it weren’t our lives, health, and relationships at issue.

There are many reasons for the low success rate. For starters, fuzzy thinking. Case in point: we rarely distinguish between resolutions, goals, and habits.

  • Resolutions are firm decisions to do or not to do something (i.e., deciding something with determination).
  • Goals are the desired results you hope to achieve. They’re the object of our ambition and effort.
  • Habits are the things you do often and regularly.

Next, there are many problems with the way we set resolutions. And there are issues with the way we go about trying to achieve them. No wonder the results tend to disappoint.

“Behavior change is hard. No doubt about it.”
–James Clear, writer

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

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12 New Year’s Resolutions Pitfalls to Avoid

Below are 12 new year’s resolutions pitfalls to avoid. As you read them, think about whether you want to change your current resolutions.

1. Having too many resolutions. This is probably the most common trap. When you have too many resolutions, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, placing the whole enterprise at risk. The problem is that it’s unrealistic, given the larger context of your many other responsibilities and challenges. And it will dilute your efforts. Avoid the trap of trying to change everything at once. It will stack the odds against you. Stanford University behavior scientist Dr. B.J. Fogg recommends focusing on a maximum of three habits at a time (and shrinking them down to what he calls “tiny habits”).

“…if we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.”
–John Doerr, Measure What Matters

2. Not identifying and focusing on the most important resolution. Here, look to what’s called “keystone habits”: ones on which others depend or that have important secondary benefits. Examples: walking daily, exercising regularly, having a healthy and consistent sleep routine. Case in point: if you exercise regularly, it probably helps you eat and sleep better, plus you may have higher energy levels, better focus, and great confidence, not to mention the direct health benefits (e.g., muscle strength, endurance, cardiovascular fitness).

3. Being unrealistic with your resolutions. Don’t set yourself up for failure by aiming for the sky. Bear in mind that small changes can add up to something big when you’re consistent and stick with them over time. Think of the magic of compound interest.

4. Being too vague. Examples of vague resolutions: Get healthy. Sleep better. Be a better person. Save more money. Lose weight. Study more. Learn Spanish. Better to get granular and specific. Examples of specific resolutions:

  • Read a book a month.
  • Save 15% of every paycheck so you’re on track for a downpayment on a new home.
  • Increase average daily step count from 9,000 currently to 10,000.

Quality of Life Assessment

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5. Adopting other people’s resolutions due to social pressure. This is often a function of caring too much about what other people think or the comparison trap. When setting resolutions, look to your core values and tap into your heart, not your ego or excessive materialism.

“The more that we choose our goals based on our values and principles,
the more we enter into a positive cycle of energy, success, and satisfaction.”
-Neil Farber, Canadian contemporary artist

6. Not writing your resolutions down. Ideally, place reminders in conspicuous places (e.g., Post-Its on your desk, reminders on your phone, notes on your fridge or bathroom mirror). And move them around. Otherwise, you’ll stop noticing them.

7. Expecting instant results. In most cases, that’s… NOT. GONNA. HAPPEN. Better to play the long game and work diligently and systematically toward something positive instead of expecting quick wins.

8. Not making a clear, specific, and realistic plan for how you’ll make it happen. To achieve your resolutions, it will help if you have good habits and an environment conducive to success. How likely are you to eat well if your cabinet is full of junk food? Will you really be able to focus more and complete that big project if you’re getting notifications, texts, and emails every five seconds? What are the odds of letting go of negative self-talk, victimhood, and blaming if you’re hanging with negative, judgmental people? Eliminating unhelpful triggers is huge.

“Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.”
-James Clear, Atomic Habits

9. Not creatively devising ways to make pursuing your resolutions more enjoyable. Are there any resolution activities that you can do with a friend? Can you do the work in a cozy or fun setting? At a good time when you can focus? Can you find ways to employ your strengths and passions when pursuing your resolutions?

Strengths Search

We all have core strengths–the things in which we most excel. Take this self-assessment to determine your core strengths so you can integrate them more into your life and work.

Find Your Strengths

 

10. Going it alone. You’re much more likely to achieve your resolutions if you make them social. Get a workout buddy. Recruit an accountability partner. Plus, it’s more fun this way. A double win!

11. Not planning for challenges. Avoid wasting too much time in dreaming mode (which can sap your motivation) and spend more time in mitigation mode (to make sure you’re prepared for the adversity that’s bound to arise). Be vigilant. Commit to getting back on track right away if or when you hit a roadblock.

12. Not tracking and celebrating your progress. Use a daily log to track your progress. As the saying goes, you don’t get what you don’t measure. Reward yourself for successful completion of milestones along the way.

“…the process of working toward a goal, participating in a valued and challenging activity, is as important to well-being as its attainment…. Working toward a meaningful life goal is one of the most important strategies for becoming lastingly happier.” –Sonja Lyubomirsky, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Riverside

How of Happiness

 

Conclusion

Truth be told, having a new year is an epic gift. You’re here. Alive and kicking. Your world is awash in possibility. What will you do to honor that precious gift?

“New year—a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story?
Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours.”
-Alex Morritt, writer

Wishing you well with it. Let me know if I can help.
–Gregg Vanourek

 

Reflection Questions

  1. How are things going with your new year’s resolutions?
  2. What changes will you make, starting today?

 

Tools for You

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

Related Articles & Resources

 

Postscript: Inspirations on New Year’s Resolutions

  • “And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” -Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian poet
  • “There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.”-G.K. Chesterton, English writer and philosopher
  • “We all get the exact same 365 days. The only difference is what we do with them.” -Hillary DePiano, playwright
  • “Make only one resolution: your chances of success are greater when you channel energy into changing just one aspect of your behavior.” –Richard Wiseman, professor of psychology, University of Hertfordshire
  • “Goals are fuel in the furnace of achievement.” –Brian Tracy, Canadian-American author and speaker
  • “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” -Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist
  • “New Year’s resolutions failing doesn’t even seem like an accident anymore; it feels as much a part of the tradition as resolutions in the first place. The worst part is how quickly it happens. You join a gym, and for the first week, you’re there every day. By the second week, the gym is just something you wave at on your way to get a burrito.” –Eric Barker, “New Research Reveals 8 Secrets that Will Make Your New Year’s Resolutions Succeed”

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Why You Should Do an Annual Life Review–And How

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You’re probably familiar with an annual performance review. According to SHRM, about 71% of organizations conduct them.

But not many people have done an annual life review.

In a way, that’s odd because of the importance of our quality of life.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
-Socrates, ancient Greek philosopher

Those who do such reviews they tend to call them different things. Some call it an “annual life review.” Others call it a “personal annual review.” A friend and colleague of mine calls it his “annual look.” He’s been doing it regularly since 1977, and he swears by it.

The idea is to look back on the year and evaluate what’s gone well and what hasn’t—and to look ahead and plan for the year to come.

 

14 Benefits of Doing an Annual Life Review

Why do this? An annual life review can help you:

  1. gain clarity about how things are going in your life
  2. spot patterns (even otherwise hidden ones) in your life
  3. break out of “drifting mode” and live more intentionally
  4. get unstuck (and avoid feeling like you’re helpless or trapped)
  5. feel motivated to go after important priorities (e.g., better work and relationships)
  6. set better goals—or recalibrate them when needed
  7. celebrate your progress and accomplishments
  8. be mindful of what you’re grateful for
  9. identify areas where you want or need to improve
  10. examine key drivers of your life like your habits and systems
  11. boost your confidence and sense of agency over your life
  12. spot and track changes and progress from year to year
  13. set you up for action and momentum in the year to come
  14. create opportunities for breakthroughs in your life (e.g., when you disrupt a negative pattern and step into a bigger life with more success, joy, and fulfillment)

Writer Matthias Frank suggests that doing such an annual review will be “your highest leverage activity all year long.”

“When you review your year as a whole, seemingly unrelated parts of your life come into focus at once,
enabling you to connect the dots.”
–Fadeka Adegbuyi, writer and content strategist

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

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How to Conduct an Annual Life Review: Time & Place

So how does this work? It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Before diving in, you’re wise to choose an appropriate setting for this reflective work. Find a place where you can focus and engage in undisturbed deep work.

“Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours.”
-Jane Austen, English novelist

Why not choose an inspiring setting, one that uplifts you? (Sometimes, it’s helpful to get away from your usual places.)

It’s important to set aside an ample amount of time. For me, it usually takes 2-3 hours, or half a day at most. You can do it all at once or break it into chunks (e.g., an hour at a time), as you wish. Don’t rush it.

Key point: be totally honest. There’s no sense in holding back or exaggerating things in your annual life review. This is for you and you alone.

 

Annual Life Review Template: Topics to Address

Once you’ve determined the time and place, you’ll want to turn to the questions and topics you’ll want to address. Though some may want to improvise and do a stream-of-consciousness review, for many people it helps to have some structure—or at least some starter questions to kick things off.

Here’s a template of sorts, with five sections:

 

1. Highlights from This Past Year

Take a look back and capture the bright spots of your year. Look across a wide range of things here, from relationships, experiences, accomplishments, and awards to hobbies, passion projects, courses, and fun surprises. Any new skills developed or people served? Perhaps a reflection on how you enjoyed seeing loved ones or colleagues thrive? Even your favorite books or movies from the year, if you like. You may want to identify your top highlights or accomplishments so they don’t get lost in the shuffle.

When I do my annual life review, I start by listing things in chronological order as they occurred throughout the year. I go through my calendar from the start of the year to the finish and note the relevant things. (You can also go through your photos for the year and relive those memories.) I’m always amazed at how quickly I forget or discount good things, how fun it is to bring them back to my attention, and how powerful it is to see them together. The collection tells a story.

You can also break it up by month to make it more digestible, as shown below.

January
  •   
February
  •   
March
  •   
April
  •   
(Etc.)
  •   

 

2. Challenges from This Past Year

Next, look at the difficulties. What did you struggle with? Where did you fall down?

Sometimes it’s cathartic to list them out. Also, it can be empowering to see all the things you’ve overcome. Or just appreciate the fact that you’re still standing despite the challenges.

Be sure to give yourself grace. The point is not to expect a perfect year. After all, this is life, with all its alluring and aggravating ups and downs. Best to approach this process with curiosity, openness, and self-compassion—and to avoid judgment and negative self-talk.

 

3. Aspirations for Next Year

Next, write down your hopes and dreams for the year to come. Think broadly here. For example, consider addressing the following areas:

  • health
  • relationships
  • work
  • education
  • service
  • fun
  • financial
  • personal development

Consider not only new things you want to bring into your life but also existing things you want to improve. Identify the ones that matter most to you—the areas in which change would most improve your happiness, fulfillment, and well-being. Ask yourself this:

How can you make the next year a great one?

 

4. Gratitude and Joys

Now, turn your attention to the top things you’re grateful for from the year (or even in your whole life, if you wish) and what (or who) has brought you the most joy. This will be a fun one.

 

5. Themes and Lessons Learned

Finally, look for themes or patterns. For example, were relationships the drivers of the highs and lows? Have you struggled to set boundaries with people in a way that’s dragging you down in multiple areas? Are you avoiding dealing with important matters?

What lessons have you learned this year? Are there take-aways that you can carry forward?

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences,
and failing to achieve anything useful.”
–Margaret J. Wheatley, writer and teacher

(Note: In the five sections above, you can address both personal and professional matters together, if applicable, or you can separate them out. The key is to find what works best for you.)

 

Going Deeper on Your Annual Life Review: Extra Credit

If you want to go deeper with your annual life review, here are more things you can do that can be extremely valuable for the insights they provide:

 

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in key areas. This will help you identify your strongest areas and the areas that need work so you can act accordingly. For example, maybe you’re pleased with how things are going with your relationships and education but want to work on your health and finances? (Or vice versa.) (See my Quality of Life Assessment.)

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Take the Assessment

 

Traps Test: Common Traps of Living

What are the things that are inhibiting your happiness and quality of life? Are you struggling with negative self-talk? Self-doubt? Overthinking? Comparing yourself to others? Settling for an okay experience of life instead of fighting for a great one? (See my Traps Test.)

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

Purpose Alignment Review

Is there a disconnect between the way you’re living and your purpose—your true reason for being? Or are they aligned? (See my article, “How to Discover Your Purpose.”)

“When we are clear about our purpose, or at least working toward it, our lives come together in powerful ways.”
–Christopher Gergen & Gregg Vanourek, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives

 

Values Alignment Review

Are you building your life and time around what’s most important to you and upholding your deeply held beliefs? Or are you being pulled off course on these fronts? Are you honoring your core values? (See my Personal Values Exercise.)

“The more that we choose our goals based on our values and principles,
the more we enter into a positive cycle of energy, success, and satisfaction.”
-Neil Farber

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Take the Exercise

 

Vision Alignment Review

Are you living in accordance with or working toward a bold and vivid picture of a better future? In pursuit of your dream of a good life? (See my article, “How to Craft a Vision of the Good Life.”)

(The good life is) “living in the place you belong, with the people you love, doing the right work—on purpose.”
–Richard Leider and David Shapiro

 

Strengths Alignment Review

To what extent are you using your core strengths—the things you’re really good at—in your life and work? (See my Strengths Search.)

“Liberating and expressing your natural genius is your ultimate path to success and life satisfaction.”
–Gay Hendricks, psychologist and author

Strengths Search

We all have core strengths–the things in which we most excel. Take this self-assessment to determine your core strengths so you can integrate them more into your life and work.

Find Your Strengths

 

Passions Alignment Review

How prominent are the things that consume you with palpable emotion in your life—the things you love doing and that you find yourself circling back to? (See my Passion Probe.)

“Allow yourself to be silently guided by that which you love the most.”
-Rumi, 13th century poet and Sufi mystic

Passion Probe

Our passions are the things that consume us with palpable emotion over time. We love doing them and talk about them often. Take this self-assessment to find the ones that resonate most with you.

Find Your Passion

 

Goals Alignment Review

Are you not only clear about the desired results you’d like to achieve but also organizing your life and time accordingly? (See my Goals Guide: Best Practices in Setting and Pursuing Goals, and my Goal-Setting Template.)

“Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.”
–Brian Tracy, author and speaker

Power Tip: Share your annual life review with someone you trust. Better yet, exchange reviews with that person and talk them through together. It’s a great way to get to know someone on a deeper level. And it can also help you take action on things going forward—an accountability partnership of sorts.

 

Call to Action

Doing an annual life review can bring more clarity and energy into your life. It can set you up for more action and momentum as you look to thrive in the new year.

Wishing you well with it, and please let me know if I can help.
–Gregg

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Reflection and Annual Life Reviews

  • “There is one art of which people should be masters—the art of reflection.” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, philosopher, and theologian
  • “Before forging head-first into the future, take time to reflect on the past.” -Fadeka Adegbuyi, writer and content strategist
  • “Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” -Peter Drucker, consultant, author, and expert on management and innovation
  • “I think technology is a wonderful thing that has to be used thoughtfully … What I am very disturbed about is this trend of everything happening faster and faster and there being more and more general noise in the world, and less and less time for quiet reflection on who we are, and where we’re going.” –Alan Lightman, physicist, educator, and writer
  • “In reflecting upon the year, do your best to examine and question, not dwell. You may have fallen short of your goals or experienced challenges that made for a hard year, but chances are you accomplished more than you think you did. No matter what you unearth in your annual review, you will have learned more about yourself and what you want in life and that counts for a lot. Reflect on the year gone by so you can move forward with renewed energy and optimism for all that’s to come.” -Fadeka Adegbuyi

 

Appendix: Other Approaches to an Annual Life Review

Of course, there are many different ways to do a life review, ranging from quite simple and straightforward to more detailed and complex. Below are two more examples.

Author James Clear keeps it simple. He calls it his “Annual Review,” and each year he addresses three simple but powerful questions:

What went well this year?
What didn’t go so well this year?
What did I learn this year?

(In 2017, he changed the third question from “What am I working toward?” to “What did I learn this year?”)

(My Annual Review) “will give me a chance to take stock of what went well and what could have gone better, while also giving me a moment to enjoy the progress I’ve made over the past 12 months.
But it’s not just about looking back. A good Annual Review is also about looking toward the future and thinking about how the life I’m living now is building toward a bigger mission. Basically, my Annual Review forces me to look at my actions over the past 12 months and ask, ‘Are my choices helping me live the life I want to live?’”
-James Clear, “My 2013 Annual Review”

By contrast, executive coach Steve Schlafman uses a more comprehensive approach with the following topics:

  • Noting Your Key Moments & Milestones
  • Reflecting on & Examining Key Topics:
    • Success & Growth (e.g., biggest successes, how you grew, good habits, new skills, biggest obstacles you overcame, best decisions, risks and rewards)
    • Failure & Falling Short (e.g., biggest failures, goals you didn’t reach, bad habits, worst decisions)
    • People & Relationships (e.g., healthy new relationships, most impactful relationship, ones you value most)
    • Lessons & Themes (e.g., top lessons learned, peak moments, worst moments, short summary of the year, what you’re most thankful for)
  • Assessing Your Life in Key Areas (i.e., health, family/friends, love, money, career, spirituality, personal growth, fun, technology, environment)
  • Planning for the New Year in Key Areas:
    • Goals & Growth (e.g., three big goals for the year, new skills to develop, a superpower you plan to use to achieve your goals, how you want to be different by the end of the year, who you want to become)
    • Moving On (e.g., what you want or need to stop doing)
    • Habits & Behaviors (e.g., habits you’ll start, stop, and continue)
    • Fears & Obstacles (e.g., how you’ll face your fears, obstacles you’ll address)
    • Relationships (e.g., who warrants more attention, who you want a new relationship with, who you’ll help)
    • Next Steps & Planning (e.g., next steps you’ll take toward your goals, resources needed, who you’ll ask for help, how to create early wins, how to evaluate progress)

Think about which format works best for you. And feel free to design your own, either from scratch or by building on, combining, or tweaking the approaches above. The key thing is to do something that will help you reflect, plan, and take action.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Can We Find Peace in the Face of Death?

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Article Summary 

What is it we fear in death? Most of us use denial as a big part of our strategy, but are there better ways to break free from the fear? Here we inquire into its root causes and look at some perspectives to (mostly) liberate ourselves from this fear—and find peace. (Guest blog by Niccolas Albiz.)

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You know how it is: You have some spreadsheet work to do so you fill the background silence with YouTube videos or some music. Today it just so happened that the fates had lined up three consecutive videos that all touched upon the concept of death and mortality.

It was just one of those days for YouTube, I guess. So now here I am, needing to write down my thoughts.

 

A Quest to Escape Aging

It started with Dr. Chris Raynor’s commentary on Bryan Johnson. Bryan Johnson is a tech entrepreneur who spends about $2 million a year trying to slow down and even reverse his own aging. All driven by the fear of dying and trying to reach an escape velocity beyond aging.

The comments on YouTube videos often fascinate me. They show how broadly cleverness is distributed. The comment that did it for me here was this:

“Bryan Johnson made it clear… that this is all stemming from his fear of death and his resources to make his attempt. Rather than throwing millions or billions at stopping his biological clock, a good therapist could talk him through his fear.”

You can’t blame anyone for fearing death. Some of my deepest held values started with the realization of death, and the existential dread that it caused in me. Now, if this fear has such a hold on you that it’s leading you down a path of rash decisions, then a therapist might be the way to go.

Yet, why does it seem so unreasonable and excessive to me to spend $2 million per year on rejuvenation treatments? It seems obsessive, manic even, to use such drastic measures to avoid death.

But why? Is it just my kneejerk reaction to something pioneering and that seems to fly in the face of nature? Or is there something to it?

Dealing with death is something that’s common to us all. Everyone should have tools to deal with it. Mostly we apply good ol’ denial. It seems like a fragile tactic though, an eggshell defense. But since our memories and focus are so easily directed to more immediate concerns, it’s somehow still a robust part of any person’s strategy.

Is denial a robust strategy in handling the existential dread of death and accessing its impetus for conscious living? Could it be for some? Is it for most, or are most of us who apply denial walking through life at below our potential for vigor?

Death is no doubt a powerful thing, not just in its finality but as a tormentor. The values that were awoken in me from when I first brushed up against death and mortality are my strongest drivers to this day. (After lots of reflection, I find I am driven by meaning, vitality, and compassion.)

As a child, I cried myself to sleep for two weeks when I first grasped the idea of death. It started when my mother explained what the zombies in Michael Jackson’s music video “Thriller” were.

The concept of death plagued me, but after two weeks, the tears were all used up. Left in their place was just an aching confusion and, over time, the deep desire to then at least live life with vitality and do something meaningful with it.

So, I understand Bryan Johnson’s desperation. But there’s something in his approach that freaked me out.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

A Violent Brush with Death

I continued with my spreadsheets, got another cup of tea, and went to the bathroom. (Tea again.) The second video I watched as I returned to my work was an interview with novelist Salman Rushdie. He’s an incredible writer. Reading him has given me endless joy.

This interview, though, was not about his fiction but about the incident where an assailant stabbed him with a knife when he was giving a lecture in Chautauqua, New York. Rushdie recounts lying down bleeding on the stage and having a moment to orient himself in the chaos.

He says that what scared and pained him wasn’t death but rather that he was there ALL ALONE. He felt alone in a big room full of strangers.

In my mind, it took me here:

“Huh… loneliness… I wonder what we actually fear in death.
Is it the same for everyone? Why does it have such a hold on us?”

Is it loneliness specifically? Some people don’t mind being alone, and actually prefer their own company over that of too many others. Is it that loneliness implies the lack of being loved by someone close? (Remember the auditorium was full of people.)

  • Is it the missed opportunity to do more?
  • The fear of being forgotten?
  • A longing for more experiences?
  • That we fear for people we’re responsible for? (Unlikely to be the only reason, simply because many fear death before they have responsibility for others.)
  • Is it that we fear for the world and want a hand in helping it back on track?
  • That we have things to do and take care of? (However trivial, elderly people often name this as a concern from what I understand.)
  • The desire to be loved?
  • A fear that we won’t matter to others in the future?
  • The fear of meaninglessness?
  • That we wish to be remembered and have a legacy somehow?
  • Some irrational fear seeded by a zombie movie?
  • Or something else?

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Take the Assessment

 

Living Beyond Ego

The third video was Annaka & Sam Harris talking about their work and meditation. They were making the case that there’s reason to see the ego as a constructed tool/illusion. (Timestamp: 32:05.)

This is, some days, the most difficult thought to hold in my mind, but sometimes also the most inspiring. If there’s nothing special about me, and I’m one small part of a much larger “everything else,” then the death I fear loses its fangs to a certain extent.

This idea, put forth by Sam and Annaka, is on the farther end of the ego and consciousness discussion. If we, however, simply hold the thought that the focus on ourselves and our death is misguided, and that instead we should look at the world and its survival, cultivation, and improvement (an “other-centric perspective”), then death looks very different.

How about I just cut to the chase:

What do I think plagues people about death?

MEANING seems to be the key concept when it comes to what we actually act on and strive for. We don’t act in a way to maximize pleasure but rather to maximize our satisfaction with our view of our lives (as Daniel Kahneman puts it).

The lack of a greater meaning for me to contribute to would mean that death poses an existential threat by making my life feel as if it’s pointless. So, WITH a greater meaning we now have something greater to care for than our own existence, something greater to serve. Whether that’s a cause, ideal, or group, it’s still something else. We die, but LIFE continues.

If my primary concern extends to me alone, then I’m doomed to be disappointed by how the story ends. But when I can shift my focus to my love of the world, people in general, and the beauty and wonder of it all, then I gain peace.

My death becomes a lot less threatening. In making myself peripheral, I gain peace. And meaning. Death still scares me, but not at all as much—and for different reasons.

It seems to me that ego (my focus on me) and love (compassion, to be precise) exist on a sort of spectrum. Strengthening one means weakening the other.

So the more I fall into the trap of focusing on my ego, or even just me, my experiences, and the things I have going on, the less I focus on my love of the world and what it needs.

I resonate with the Stoic idea (and Ryan Holiday’s phrasing), “Ego is the enemy.” But this trap of ego is easy to fall into, particularly when your phone and TV stick their tendrils into you.

So, I find these activities to be simple but effective…

  1. Reading fiction. When reading, I get sucked in by the beauty of other people’s experiences. I’m pulled out of my own drama, which I live in otherwise.
  2. Wishing people happiness. Chade-Meng Tan introduced me to the idea of looking at two strangers as you walk or commute to work every day (my version) and thinking, “I wish for you to be happy.” This trains a certain kind intention as the spontaneous response to seeing someone.
  3. “Three good things.” Every day after lunch or before bed, I list three things that have been good with my day. This helps me appreciate the beauty of things and focus less on myself.

So, here are my questions for you:

Have you ever thought about death?
What does it bring up for you?
What’s the root of that feeling?
Can changing the focus away from your self help?

 

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This is a guest blog by Niccolas Albiz. Niccolas is a sustainability and socio-technical change consultant. He works in Sweden with demonstration projects aimed at eradicating mobility poverty and CO2 emissions in rural areas by means of autonomous vehicles.

Niccolas Albiz, photo by Otto Norin

 

Videos Referenced

 

Tools for You

 

Related Articles

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This is a guest post by Niccolas Albiz on Gregg Vanourek’s blog.

Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

 

 

Are You Getting Complacent? 17 Signs

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Is complacency creeping up on you, like it does to so many of us? Are you getting overly comfortable with things? Sliding into a state of easy contentment? Blissfully unaware of your life traps or leadership derailers? Showing the signs of complacency?

Complacency can prevent you from doing the things you really want to do in life.

There are many areas in which you can become complacent. For example:

  • Health and vitality (both physical and mental)
  • Relationships with your spouse or partner (if applicable), family, and/or friends
  • Work (potentially including not just paid work but also family caregiving, household management, and volunteering)
  • Education and learning
  • Service (contributions to family, friends, classmates, colleagues, community, and/or causes or places)
  • Activities (e.g., play, fun, hobbies, travel, free time, vacations)
  • Financial (e.g., income, assets, security, savings, investments, wealth-building, etc.)
  • Personal core (including things like happiness, fulfillment, gratitude, authentic alignment, and religion or spirituality)

(Consider using my Quality of Life Assessment to evaluate where you stand in these areas.)

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Take the Assessment

 

How to know if you’ve fallen into the complacency trap? Here are 17 indicators.

 

17 Signs of Complacency

When you’re complacent, you tend to:

  1. Take things for granted
  2. Have so much routine that things feel boring or monotonous
  3. Start losing your ambition and initiative
  4. Stick to what you know instead of pushing yourself sometimes
  5. Stay in your comfort zone
  6. Start to “phone it in” at work or in relationships (e.g., poor communication or minimal effort)
  7. See a decline in your work output and/or quality
  8. Stop learning and growing
  9. Resist change or trying new things
  10. Avoid risk
  11. Resist input or feedback
  12. Miss opportunities
  13. Take the path of least resistance
  14. Put off more difficult tasks
  15. Stay in a job that isn’t challenging
  16. Give up on your aspirations and dreams
  17. Start to feel apathetic

 

The Downsides of Complacency

Comfort and satisfaction aren’t inherently bad. They’re good, up to a point.

The issue arises when you become too comfortable and complacent, losing the motivation and passion to embrace challenges and chase your dreams.

Complacency drains your drive and leads to inaction when you should be taking steps forward. It prevents necessary improvements, reduces initiative, and diminishes your sense of hope. Over time, it fosters mediocrity, closes windows of opportunity, and stalls personal growth and career progress.

You’re wise to address complacency when it arises and bring back a sense of urgency to your life and work.

“Never be passive about your life…  ever, ever.”
-Robert Egger, from our LIFE Entrepreneurs interview

 

Tools for You

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

Related Articles

 

Reflection Questions

  1. Are you seeing signs of complacency in your life, work, or relationships?
  2. What steps will you take to regain the drive and urgency to escape this trap?

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Signs of Complacency and Urgency

  • “Complacency keeps you living a comfortable life… not the life you desire. Challenge yourself to do something different. Then, notice the new charged quality of your life.” -Nina Amir, author and coach
  • “The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.” -Leo Babauta, author
  • “The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.” -Benjamin E. Mays, Baptist minister and civil rights leader
  • “By far the biggest mistake people make when trying to change organizations is to plunge ahead without establishing a high enough sense of urgency in fellow managers and employees.” -John Kotter, professor, author, and thought leader in business, leadership, and organizational change

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

The Power of Authentic Alignment in Your Life

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Article Summary: 

Many of us lack authentic alignment in our life and work. We don’t have a good fit between who we are and how we live. On the problem with lacking authentic alignment, why it happens, and what to do about it.

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Are you being true to yourself? Is there a good fit between how you live and who you really are? In other words, do you have authentic alignment in your life?

If you’re living in authentic alignment (1), there’s a good match between your inner world of your thoughts, hopes, and dreams and the outer world of what you’re doing with your life. There’s coherence between your core values, beliefs, priorities, and actions. With authentic alignment, you’re more likely to have not only physical but also mental, emotional, and even spiritual health and wellness.

There’s great power in the integrity of what author Kevin Cashman calls “total congruence” between who you are and what you do. As well as in the wholeness of what educator and author Parker Palmer calls “an undivided life.”

“A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature.”
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca, ancient Roman Stoic philosopher

 

The Problem of Lacking Authentic Alignment in Your Life

There are many instances in which we can see the problem with misalignment. If your car tires are out of alignment, for example, you can have poor handling, uneven tire wear, reduced fuel efficiency, and suspension problems. What happens when the players on a team are all over the place instead of acting as a disciplined unit? How will it go if a married couple isn’t on the same page about children and finances? What happens to organizations when they’re not aligned?

There’s also a cost to lacking authentic alignment in your life. When it’s missing, you tend to:

  • spend a lot of time doing things you don’t really want to do
  • feel inauthentic, like a fraud
  • fall into the trap of people-pleasing
  • feel stuck in your life or work
  • feel sad or disappointed that you’ve given up on yourself or your dreams
  • risk forgetting who you truly are because you’ve been pretending to be something you’re not for so long
  • be disconnected or cut off from yourself, making you feel off kilter
  • suspect that you’re going through the motions of life
  • be anxious, frustrated, or overwhelmed more often
  • feel lethargic or exhausted

What’s more, misalignment undermines your ability to do good work and perform at your highest levels.

“…there can be no greater suffering than living a lifelong lie….
in the end what will matter most is knowing that we stayed true to ourselves.”
-Parker Palmer, educator and writer

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

Why We Do It

Lacking authentic alignment is common. But why? There are many factors that can disrupt the rhythm of marching to the beat of your own drummer, as the expression goes. For example, you may drift away from your core because you:

Sometimes, an external shock can create misalignment. It can be moving to a new community, losing a job, having a health crisis, or losing a loved one.

 

Benefits of Authentic Alignment

When you’re playing your own tune in life, it can bring you many benefits, including:

  • a sense of wellness, including inner peace and harmony
  • more freedom
  • more balance in your life
  • a sense of gratitude
  • more joy
  • a sense of fulfillment

When you have authentic alignment, you’re more likely to feel content and secure. You’re better able to move on and let go of things that aren’t good for you. And you’re able to tap into your inner voice and intuition.

With authentic alignment, you’re also better at setting boundaries and bolder in doing the things you really want to do. You’re likely to develop and maintain better relationships because you’re no longer hiding yourself. People will get to know the real you as you show up in the world with more honesty and vulnerability, in turn fostering connection and intimacy. You’ll tend to attract people who are a better fit for you in things like friendships or romantic relationships.

When you have authentic alignment, you don’t fret about wasting time because you’re intentionally engaging in good things in your life. This can help you move from a vexing sense of doubt about whether you’re living well to a sense of clarity, satisfaction, and serenity.

Living in authentic alignment can bring you a sense of profound satisfaction, with no need to keep chasing things because you already feel whole. Finally, it can help you avoid the common regret of living your life according to other people’s expectations instead of a life true to yourself.

“Of all of the regrets and lessons shared with me as I sat beside their beds, the regret of not having lived a life true to themselves was the most common of all. It was also the one that caused the most frustration” (since their realization came too late)…. “It is a pity that being who we truly are requires so much courage, but it does. It takes enormous courage at times.”
-Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying

 

How to Create and Maintain Authentic Alignment

How to go about creating more authentic alignment in your life? Here are 14 approaches:

1. Develop your self-awareness. Know yourself so well and deeply that you feel a sense of clarity and comfort about who you are and what makes you tick, helping you feel more comfortable in your own skin.

2. Strip away your ego, pride, and ambition. Set aside the expectations of others. Tap into your heart instead of your ego.

3. Remove your mask in front of those you love the most, deepening connection. Stop pretending to be something you’re not. Let them see the real you and invite them to reciprocate.

4. Explore the root causes that led you to want to avoid being yourself. Perhaps it was outside expectations? Or fear of judgment or failure? Fear of rejection, or of being hurt? Afraid to be seen for who you truly are? Sometimes, your life may be overly full, cluttered with too many commitments and too much “busyness.”

5. Return to your center by finding or creating sanctuary in your life. Sanctuary is a place or practice of peace in which you can leave the distractions, interruptions, and chaos behind and be present in silent, deep reflection. It could be a quiet room at home, a place of worship, or a quiet and solitary spot in nature.

6. Notice when you’re becoming misaligned. Pay attention to how you’re feeling. Is it frustration? Shame? Something else? Tune into your body and your emotions. Also, pay attention to the situations where it’s common: what are you doing and who are you with? See if there are patterns.

7. Practice disciplined self-care regularly. It’s easy to become misaligned when you’re tired, overworked, or burned out. Maintain healthy habits and rituals so you don’t fall into traps that get you out of alignment.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

Take the Assessment

 

8. Discover your core values. Your values are what you consider most important in life, what’s most worthy and valuable to you. Are you living in accordance with your values?

9. Discover your strengths. What are the things you’re good at and that make you feel powerful when you’re engaging in them? Make sure that you’re using them often.

10. Discover your passions. What are the things that consume you with palpable emotion over time? How can you integrate them into your days more often?

11. Discover your purpose. Think about why you’re here and what feels purposeful and meaningful to you. Are you living purposefully? This can be a tough one for people. Author Richard Leider points out that there are two types of purpose. First, is a “BIG P” Purpose (a noble cause or something you can dedicate your life to). But you can also have a “little p” purpose (daily choices of how to contribute to others). Leider notes that “little p” actions are just as worthy. Also, they can add up over time into something potent.

12. Craft a vision of the good life. Think about how you want to live. What’s a bold and vivid picture of that? Make sure you’re working toward living it.

13. Be vigilant in declining activities that aren’t a good fit while agreeing to ones that are in alignment. When opportunities and requests come your way, do you have a good way to screen them? Without some sort of criteria or filter, you can end up with days filled with things are far afield from what you want to do.

14. Pay attention to when you need to interrupt the pattern and make a more radical shift. In a Harvard Business Review article, Donald Sull and Dominic Houlder point out that you may need to break the cycle with a catalyst like a course or sabbatical so you can spot unhealthy patterns and give yourself time to make needed changes.

 

Conclusion

Though authentic alignment may sound straightforward, it’s common for people to drift out of alignment.

It’s essential to be honest with yourself. If you can’t admit to yourself that you’re out of alignment, you’re unlikely to get it back.

It won’t help if you’re too hard on yourself when you drift. A little self-compassion can go a long way. Misalignment is common. If you find yourself judging yourself harshly and engaging in negative self-talk, change the channel and flip toward ideas for how to bring alignment back into your life.

It’s also important to have your own back. Go to bat for yourself just as you would your best friend. Finally, recall that authentic alignment is an ongoing process. Expect to have ups and downs. That’s okay, as long as you work to bring it back when you drift.

Wishing you well with it, and please reach out if you think I can help.
–Gregg

Tools for You

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

Related Articles & Resources

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Authentic Alignment

  • “To thine own self be true.” -William Shakespeare, English poet, playwright, and actor
  • “To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” -e.e. cummings, poet, painter, and playwright
  • “I know who I am. The more we try to be something we’re not, the less successful we’ll be…. I don’t care what I do as long as I adhere to certain values.” -Jael Kampfe, from our LIFE Entrepreneurs interview
  • “Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life.” -William Stafford, from his poem, “Ask Me”
  • “I think I’ve always had a strong sense of who I am, but allowing myself to be that person is more recent.” -Bridget Bradley Gray, from our LIFE Entrepreneurs interview
  • “Being true to who you really are can be one of the hardest things to do in life.” -Carlii Lyon, Australian executive
  • “Even if all these needs are satisfied, we may still often (if not always) expect that a new discontent and restlessness will soon develop, unless the individual is doing what he is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must This need we may call self-actualization.” -Abraham Maslow, psychologist
  • “The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” -Anna Quindlen, writer
  • “…the secret of career satisfaction lies in doing what you enjoy most. A few lucky people discover this secret early in life, but most of us are caught in a kind of psychological wrestling match, torn between what we think we can do, what we (or others) feel we ought to do, and what we think we want to do. Our advice? Concentrate instead on who you are, and the rest will fall into place.” -Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron, and Kelly Tieger, Do What You Are
  • “I can’t think of a sadder way to die than with the knowledge that I never showed up in this world as who I really am. I can’t think of a more graced way to die than with the knowledge that I showed up here as my true self, the best I knew how, able to engage life freely and lovingly because I had become fierce with reality.” -Parker Palmer, On the Brink of Everything
  • “The ultimate goal in life is not to be successful or loved, but to become the truest expression of ourselves, to live into authentic selfhood, to honor our birthright gifts and callings, and be of service to humanity and our world… life is seen as a journey of personal and collective unfolding toward our true nature.” -Frederic Laloux in Reinventing Organizations
  • “Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the integrity that comes from being what you are.” -Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
  • “Trying to live someone else’s life, or to live by an abstract norm, will invariably fail—and may even do great damage.” -Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
  • “If you are experiencing unease or demotivation in your life, it is probably because you are not living according to your values.” -Andrew Bryant and Ana Kazan, Self-Leadership
  • “Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am. I must listen for the truths and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live—but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life.” -Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
  • “That’s who I am at my core, what I love. I mean, if a young person calls me and says, ‘Hey, can you help me? Can you listen to me?’ I can’t say no to that. It’s almost physically impossible for me to say no.” -Gerald Chertavian, from our LIFE Entrepreneurs interview
  • “One dwells with God by being faithful to one’s nature. One crosses God by trying to be something one is not.” -Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
  • “I was dying inside. I was so possessed by trying to make you love me for my achievements that I was actually creating this identity that was disconnected from myself. I wanted people to love me for the hologram I created of myself.” -Chip Conley, author and entrepreneur, from our LIFE Entrepreneurs interview

 

Appendix: Related Concepts

There are several concepts related to authentic alignment that can help us understand it better.

Authenticity. When you’re authentic, it means you’re genuine, real, and true. Researcher and author Brene Brown defines authenticity as “the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are.” Other researchers describe it as “the degree to which a particular behavior is congruent with a person’s attitudes, beliefs, values, motives, and other dispositions.” (Source: Jongman-Sereno, K. P., & Leary, M. R. (2019). The enigma of being yourself: A critical examination of the concept of authenticity. Review of General Psychology, 23(1), 133–142.)

Authentic Integrity. In our book, LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives, Christopher Gergen and I noted the importance of “authentic integrity”: “integration of all aspects of our lives in a way that coheres with our true nature.” It means living in alignment with our “core identity,” including our purpose, values, strengths, and aspirations.

“I just felt like I’ve lived a life that was true to itself…. Anybody who’s ever hung out in an ‘old man bar’—you know what I’m talking about—sees what happens when you don’t let that part of yourself do its thing.”
-Mary Cutrufello, musician and songwriter, in our LIFE Entrepreneurs interview

Self-concordance. Originally, researchers thought of self-concordance as being in touch with your deeper self. More recently, researchers are conceptualizing it as congruence between your implicit motives (unconscious, automatic drives) and explicit motives (conscious drives like personal goals). When you’re self-concordant, you tend to choose goals that are more personally productive and fulfilling. It enhances your ability to grow, achieve your goals, and feel happy. Researchers measure self-concordance via the relative autonomy index, with a continuum ranging from external to internal motivation. (Source: Kennon M. Sheldon and Erica A. Holberg, “Chapter Four—Using free will wisely: The importance of self-concordant goal pursuit,” Advances in Motivation Science, Vol. 10, 2023.)

Self-congruence. When you have self-congruence, you tend to behave consistently with who you really are and what you’re really like, according to researchers. This can include things like your “true self” or your attitudes, beliefs, and values.

True North. Authors Bill George and Peter Sims define your true north as “the internal compass that guides you successfully through life. It represents who you are as a human being at your deepest level. It is your orienting point.”

Critiques. Not surprisingly, there are also critiques of concepts like “authenticity” and “true self” in the research literature. For example, in their article, “The Enigma of Being Yourself,” Katrina P. Jongman-Sereno and Mark R. Leary write: “the human personality invariably contains myriad personality dispositions, emotional tendencies, values, attitudes, beliefs, and motives that are often contradictory and incompatible even though they are genuine aspects of the person’s psychological make-up…. People are genuinely multifaceted.”

“Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
-Walt Whitman, poet

Do we truly understand ourselves, including our behaviors, and the reasons behind them? Are our self-perceptions biased, incomplete, selective, or even inaccurate, as some researchers suggest? Additionally, how much does nonconscious mental functioning drive our behavior?

Researchers have noted that there’s ambiguity and variability in the definitions of terms like “authenticity,” not to mention cultural differences. They also warn against having an idealized version of the self, because it’s unattainable, leading to potential feelings of inadequacy or failure. For some, the pressure to “be authentic” can result in significant anxiety and stress.

Jongman-Sereno and Leary also note that our ability to adapt our behavior to suit different situations is generally beneficial for our psychological wellbeing and social relationships. We often find ourselves playing various roles at home and work, and that’s normal. (But there’s a significant difference between making small adjustments to ease interactions and wearing a mask to disguise who we really are.)

(1) Dr. Asha Prasad wrote about this topic in her 2016 book, Authentic Alignment: How Ancient Wisdom And Modern Science Can Revitalize Your Health, Happiness and Potential. Others have written about “inner alignment” and related terms.

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

Getting to the Root Causes of Things: Why and How

by

A brilliant but troubled young man from a tough neighborhood in south Boston is working as a janitor at an elite technical university. Despite his incredible potential, he plans to stick around with his childhood buddies and not use his gifts. His therapist comes from the same neighborhood and is fascinated by the smug young prodigy.

Sound familiar? It’s the plot of the acclaimed film, “Good Will Hunting,” of course, starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, and Minnie Driver. And it’s also a case study in root causes.

In their first session, Will shocked his therapist, Dr. Sean Maguire, played by Robin Williams, with cutting observations about him based on his painting on the wall. When they met a few days later at the park, Sean told Will that, while he’s brilliant, he’s just a kid. Though he knows an astonishing amount of facts and figures, he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Will hasn’t traveled outside of Boston. He hasn’t yet experienced the things of the world that bring you deep wisdom, or real love with a partner.

Sean sees that, though Will has incredible intellectual abilities feeding his crass self-assurance, he’s really just lost and afraid. Sean asks him:

“You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally… I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can’t learn anything from you, I can’t read in some f*ckin’ book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that do you sport? You’re terrified of what you might say.”

Will, perhaps for the first time in his life, had the tables turned on him. Later, in an emotional exchange in Sean’s office, they trade stories of their violent fathers. Will recently broke up with his girlfriend and suspects that Sean will give him some textbook theories about attachment disorder or fear of abandonment.

But Sean does something surprising. He drops Will’s psych file on the desk and says, “It’s not your fault.”

Will says he knows that. But Sean keeps repeating it, over and over. Until it finally cracks Will’s heart open and the pain comes streaming through—and healing.

They’d finally gotten to the root of it.

 

What Are You Struggling With?

Think about whether there are any recurring patterns or challenges in your life. (If so, welcome to the human race. You’re not alone.) Common ones include feeling stuck in your career and struggling with things like money, body image, self-doubt, or toxic relationships.

Have you, like Sean and Will, gotten to the root of it?

When you’re passed over for a promotion, your first response might be to blame your ungrateful manager. Upon further reflection, though, you might realize that you’re deflecting responsibility. Without understanding and addressing the root cause, you’re stuck spinning unhelpful stories and playing the victim.

Are your financial woes really about your stingy boss or your mindset, habits, and choices?
Are your health problems really about your stressful job or about your numbing of deeper issues?

Difficult issues, for sure, but how long will they go on if you’re not addressing them at the right level?

When your yard has weeds, do you mow over them, or do you get down in the dirt and grab them by the root?

You may notice that many of the traps of living—the things that inhibit our happiness and quality of life—come with common root causes. Examples:

  • Having a victim mentality often stems from difficult experiences or trauma, leading you to feel powerless and believe that other people or outside circumstances dictate the terms of your life.
  • Blaming often originates in fear of vulnerability or failure. You may have learned to deflect responsibility as a coping mechanism to protect your self-image or avoid the irritation of accountability.
  • People-pleasing often stems from a desire for approval and acceptance, perhaps caused by early experiences of conditional love or approval. Maybe you internalized the message that your worth depends on meeting others’ expectations.
  • Workaholism can come from a need for achievement, perhaps driven by difficult or embarrassing situations early in life. Parental, peer, or societal pressures that equate success with achievement can fuel it. Your excessive work may be a means to gain control or validation.

Take the Traps Test

We all fall into traps in life. Sometimes we’re not even aware of it, and we can’t get out of traps we don’t know we’re in. Evaluate yourself with our Traps Test.

Take the Test

 

9 Tips to Help You Discover Root Causes

Here are nine things you can do when engaging in root cause analysis:

1. Use the “five whys” questioning technique to get beyond surface-level symptoms and drill down to root causes. When you encounter a problem, ask “Why?” five times. That inquiry can help take you down to the underlying issue. (See the “Practice” section below for more on this.)

2. Recognize that, while it may be tempting to externalize the problem and shift the blame, the root cause is often internal. Keep your focus on how and why things have happened instead of on who’s causing you difficulty. That way, you’ll focus on things you can control and avoid going down the rabbit holes of blaming and victimhood. Consider whether the root cause has to do with your mindset, beliefs, choices, attitudes, or habits.

3. Think about several challenges you’ve experienced and see if there’s a pattern. Sometimes, by looking at a series of things, you can trace them back to a common denominator. For example, it could be a fear of looking bad or of failing.

4. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Identify your limiting beliefs and then dig deeper into the assumptions behind them and consider where they come from. For example, if you believe you’re damaged goods, a failure, or not worthy of love, think about whether you somehow got the message that you need to act a certain way or achieve at a certain level to be a good person.

5. Note that while getting to the root cause is ideal, sometimes you may need immediate relief. In some cases, it’s helpful to address acute problems to give yourself more running room.

6. Note that there may be multiple root causes. Sometimes, there’s a confluence of factors causing you pain. If you’re experiencing anxiety, for example, it may stem from life events, personality traits, peer pressure, cultural influences, childhood upbringing and parenting approaches, genetic factors, and/or brain chemistry imbalances.

7. Don’t do this alone. Seek help from trusted friends and colleagues, a small, supportive group, or a therapist. That will help you identify blind spots, bring in fresh perspectives, and challenge your assumptions.

8. Look for ways to prevent the root causes from coming up in the future. For example, getting to the bottom of why you feel stuck in your career can help you identify key issues, such as a lack of clear and compelling career goals, insufficient skill development, and fear of change. Perhaps your lack of clarity stems from not taking the time to reflect on your core values, strengths, passions, and aspirations. And maybe your lack of skill development stems from complacency or an overfull schedule.

9. Also look for the root causes of your victories and successes, not just your defeats and failures. Doing so can help you continue having good results and also port those approaches to other areas of your life.

 

Conclusion

Engaging in root cause analysis is vital to success and wellbeing. By understanding the underlying factors that contribute to your struggles, you can implement targeted approaches to address them, leading to better outcomes. This proactive approach can enhance your self-awareness and your personal and professional growth. By committing to this reflective process, you can finally unshackle yourself from the things that have been holding you back.

Quality of Life Assessment

Evaluate your quality of life in ten key areas by taking our assessment. Discover your strongest areas, and the areas that need work, then act accordingly.

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Reflection Questions

  1. Do you have recurring problems or challenges that are holding you back?
  2. Have you identified their root causes?
  3. What more will you do, starting today?

 

Tools for You

 

Postscript: Inspirations on Root Causes

  • “When solving problems, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves.” -Anthony J. D’Angelo, author
  • “Negative thinking is subtle and deceptive. It wears many faces and hides behind the mask of excuses. It is important to strip away the mask and discover the real, root emotion.” -Robert H. Schuller, pastor
  • “We lack emotional connection even when we are surrounded by other people. This feeling of being profoundly alone is the root cause of unhappiness in the human race. It is the root cause of addictions. It is the root cause of suicide. It is the root cause of acts of terror. And it is the root of the dysfunction in the way society is structured.” -Teal Swan, author

Personal Values Exercise

Complete this exercise to identify your personal values. It will help you develop self-awareness, including clarity about what’s most important to you in life and work, and serve as a safe harbor for you to return to when things are tough.

Take the Exercise

 

Practice: Using “Five Whys” to Identify the Root Cause

In the 1930s, Japanese inventor and industrialist Sakichi Toyoda developed a questioning technique known as the “five whys” method to improve manufacturing processes as part of the Toyota Production System. With this now-famous and widely used method, workers ask why at least five times when they encounter a problem, helping them discover and address the root cause of the problem instead of addressing surface-level symptoms.

Here’s how it works: When you encounter a problem, ask why it’s occurring, and then answer that. Then ask why again, and answer that. And so on, five times.

The idea is to encourage people to go deep enough and not stop too soon. But in reality, five isn’t a magic number, and the deeper why questioning process can end with any number of whys. But five is a good proxy for going deep.

Here’s an example:

  1. Why does Alicia feel stuck in her career? Because she hasn’t taken on any new responsibilities lately.
  2. Why? Because her current workload feels overwhelming.
  3. Why? Because she spends a lot of time people-pleasing and managing tasks that could be delegated.
  4. Why? Because she worries that her team members might not complete them to her standards.
  5. Why? Because she has perfectionistic tendencies and control issues.

Another example:

  1. Why isn’t our new product selling well? Because customers aren’t making repeat purchases.
  2. Why? Because they’re dissatisfied with the product’s performance.
  3. Why? Because it doesn’t meet their expectations set by our marketing claims.
  4. Why? Because they overhyped the product and didn’t do sufficient testing before launch.
  5. Why? Because there was pressure to launch too quickly due to the upcoming board meeting.

 

Appendix: Examples of Getting to the Root Causes of Things

Example: Missing Motivation. Marcus is unhappy with his job. His motivation disappeared years ago. Lately, he finds himself procrastinating and missing deadlines, which never used to happen. It’s leading to guilt and stress. Unbeknownst to him, what’s really going on beneath it all is that Marcus resents feeling undervalued. Two years ago, he was coldly overlooked for a well-deserved promotion and felt humiliated. Today, he’s filled with frustration and self-doubt—and thinking about resigning.

Example: Careening Career. Maria has been in the same work role for years but feels unfulfilled. And resentful. Despite her years of experience, she avoids seeking new opportunities because she fears she won’t be taken seriously. A previous boss dismissed her ideas callously, causing her to doubt her abilities. Today, she remains stuck in a position that bores her, feeling frustrated and trapped.

Example: Lost Leadership. When Catherine discovers that her team is missing its quarterly sales goals, she implements stricter sales quotas and adds daily check-ins. What she’s missing is that her team lacks confidence when selling because they don’t fully understand the new product’s features and functionality, and they don’t feel comfortable coming to her. Unbeknownst to her, Catherine’s task-driven approach comes across as cold and uncaring.

Example: Rocky Relationship. Cynthia and Thomas have been arguing a lot lately. They’ve been fighting about all sorts of things—the dishes, the kids, the budget, the yard. And things are escalating quickly to shouting storms. They’re frustrated and caught in a cycle of mutual blame. And they’re too busy finding fault with each other to step back and notice that, for a long time, Cynthia has felt unappreciated despite doing more around the house, and Tom feels unsupported in his stressful career.

Example: Nonprofit Nosedive. A nonprofit organization is experiencing a severe drop in participation at its events. In response, they’re ramping up their marketing efforts and changing their event formats. What they’re missing is that many families in the new demographic they’re targeting don’t have access to reliable transportation.

Example: Startup Struggles. An app development startup has a talented and dedicated team, but they’ve been missing important milestones lately—a shock to all. While they continue to blame individuals, the real problem is a lack of defined roles within the team, coupled with poor communication. Without clarity, their efforts are often redundant. Meanwhile, projects fall behind, clients get frustrated, and team members lose their enthusiasm.

Gregg Vanourek’s Newsletter

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Gregg Vanourek is a writer, teacher, and TEDx speaker on personal development and leadership. He is co-author of three books, including LIFE Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (a manifesto for living with purpose and passion) and Triple Crown Leadership: Building Excellent, Ethical, and Enduring Organizations (a winner of the International Book Awards). Check out his Best Articles or get his monthly newsletter. If you found value in this article, please forward it to a friend. Every little bit helps!

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